About 1890 William Harris, after having worked with property owners for some time, and having seen how a number of them prospered (with the exception of those like James Peake and Alexander Coombs whose ﬁnancial troubles we have already noted), decided to go into property development for himself. He bought land opposite the old exhibition ground on Brighton Road and moved on to it the old Revere Hotel from the foot of Great George Street. The hotel was very large, so he cut it in half, and made each half into a semi- detached dwelling, Nos. 24-26 and 28-30 Brighton Road Buildings were moved in those days by putting them on rollers and attaching them by ropes to a capstan in the middle of the street that was turned by a horse. William installed himself, his sister Sarah, and his parents into No. 24, his brother Tom and his wife Etta and their four children into No. 26, and his sister Maggie and her husband, Will Cotton (publisher of Charlottetown's daily paper, The Examiner), and their seven children into No. 30. Tom's business partner, W.H. Stewart, bought the lot on the corner in 1891 and built on it a house, No. 22, designed by William, that had an umbrage and holey bargeboards. The Harrises called No. 24 Hawthorne Villa, so No. 22 became Hawthorne Cottage. As you can see from the picture the name Hawthorne was most appropriate, for within a few years the property was smothered in creeper. HouSes with creepers are diﬁicult to paint, and present problems in maintenance. But they appealed to lovers of the Picturesque a hundred years ago. William Harris always drew creepers in his architectural drawings of exterior elevatitms.

On the next corner, in 1903, Harold Jenkins built himSelf a house (No. 36) to a William Harris design with corner buttresses (like the buttress on St. Peter's Rectory) and an umbrageaaike the ninbrage on Hawthorne Cottage). Unforttmately, the umbrage was later ﬁlled in with in Colonial Style doorway appropriate to. a diﬁ‘erent style of architecture. Mr. Jenkin's claim to fame is that he coined the word groceteria. . . . .

In 1892 William Harris moved the old Weeks house on Pownal Street, in which he and his parents had lived since 1880, to No. 32 - 34 Brighton Road, turning it into a duplex. It was later the home of