Pemberton Holmes was founded in 1887 as Pemberton & Son, though it did not establish a formal office until the following year. For their first year, Joseph Despard Pemberton and Frederick Bernard Pemberton worked out of their home mainly as surveyors and civil engineers before expanding their business into real estate and insurance.
On November 29th, 1888, Pemberton & Son moved into the Pemberton Block, as buildings were called in those days. The building was located on the corner of Fort and Broad Street on a property that Joseph had purchased years earlier as a stable for his horse. Designed by F.B. Pemberton, the two-storey building included a ground floor for business operations and a second floor that housed its first tenant, the Victoria Club.
After a devastating fire in 1910, Pemberton Block was renovated into a larger office building, known as the Pemberton Building, and later became the Yarrow Building after being sold to Norman Yarrow in the late 1940s. Today, the Yarrow is featured on the Canadian Register of Historic Places and still stands on Fort, Broad, and Broughton Streets, as it continues to host several businesses as the Pemberton Block once did, many years ago.
(Top: Pemberton block, fort street with view of Victoria Club sign & other businesses / Bottom: Pemberton Building, looking south on Broad Street towards Fort)
(Interior of building)
