Description of Historic Place

The Wasson House is a one-and-one-half-storey wood-frame Period Revival cottage, with modern detailing, notable for its side-gabled roof and prominent front-gabled projection. Located on the north side of Royal Avenue, mid-block between Pandosy and Long Streets, the house is situated amidst houses of a similar scale in Kelowna's historic Abbott Street neighbourhood.

Heritage Value

Built in 1939, the Wasson House is of heritage value for its early twentieth century architecture, and as a notable residential design by architect Charles Burwell Kerrens Van Norman (1906-1975). This is a particularly fine expression of the tentative acceptance of domestic modernism, at a time when houses were still expected to conform to traditional styles and appearance. Van Norman was born in Ontario, studied architecture at the University of Winnipeg and moved to Vancouver in 1928, where two years later he opened his own practice. During the course of his long and prolific career, his uncompromising embrace of modernism helped define that style as it developed throughout the province. Examples of his work include the landmark Revelstoke City Hall (1938-39) and the Powell River Company Store (1940-41). During the 1930s, Van Norman's residential work expressed a transition from the popular Period Revival styles of the era to a new, unornamented modernist idiom. While thoroughly modern in plan and layout, the exterior of the Wasson House features some traditional historical references such as half-timbering.

The house is additionally significant for its history of ownership. It was originally built for Frederick C. Wasson, a B.C. Government dairy inspector. Located across the street from the Kelowna General Hospital, three of its subsequent owners were medical practitioners: John T. Cruise (an Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat specialist); Allyn W. Brown (physician); and Ronald D. Ellis (physician).

Source: City of Kelowna Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Wasson House include its:
- location on a south-facing landscaped lot, with a grassed yard and mature trees and shrubs
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its one-and-one-half storey height (with basement) and compound rectangular plan
- side-gabled roof with front-gabled projection on the main facade
- wood-frame construction with stucco cladding, highlighted by rough-sawn cedar boards in the gabled ends on the side elevations
- Modernist style elements, such as its smooth stucco walls and tapering corbelled exterior chimney
- Period Revival influence, as demonstrated in features such as its half-timbering in the front gable, multi-paned windows and timber supports and braces at the front entry
- additional exterior elements, such as its shed-roof front porch, brick detailing on the front entrance porch and staircase, two tall corbelled chimneys (one internal and one external), decorative scroll-cut trim over the front door frame and window head trim moulding with battered profile
- regular fenestration, including triple assembly eight-light casement windows, eight-light fixed sash windows and fixed 24-pane window on the front facade
- original wood-frame free-standing garage