Description of Historic Place

The historic place is the single-storey wood-frame Dr. Keller House, built in 1902 in a simple cottage manner, and located at 2005 Pandosy Street in Kelowna's South Central neighbourhood.

Heritage Value

The Dr. Keller House is valued because of its association with a Kelowna family that made significant contributions to the early community and the country in the medical, military, and political fields. It also has value for its early date of construction, before the incorporation of the City of Kelowna, and for its construction by a prominent local builder.

Though not on its original site, this building is the original residence of Kelowna's second doctor. It is also the childhood home of Major-General Rodney Keller, the area's most distinguished soldier. Described at the time as 'a very neat cottage', the house was built in 1902 for Dr. Herman Louis Arthur Keller by H.W. Raymer, a pioneer Kelowna builder. Originally located at the northwest corner of Pandosy Street and Bernard Avenue, it served as both the residence and medical office of Dr. Keller.

Dr. H.L.A. Keller was born in England about 1860 and was educated at Oxford. He and his wife Ada Elizabeth came to Canada in 1897 and settled at Ymir in the Boundary district. After a brief return to England, they (and son Rodney, born in England in 1900) came to Kelowna, where Dr. Keller, a rather private individual who came from a well-to-do family, operated a limited practice, primarily among the English residents of the community.

The historic place is also the only surviving residential building from Kelowna's original townsite, built in 1902, before the City's incorporation. In 1908 the cottage was moved from its original location at the corner of Bernard Avenue and Pandosy Street to its current location on Pandosy Street, which had recently been extended south of Mill Creek. The move occurred to make way for construction of a new brick commercial building, known as the Keller Block. The relocated cottage was evidently intended as a rental property, since the Kellers chose to reside in a house at the northwest corner of Ellis Street and Mill Avenue (now Queensway). The house remained the property of Mrs. Keller until at least 1929. In 1943 (or earlier) the cottage was bought by Basil and Lilian Wood, the former a fruit-grower from East Kelowna and orchard supervisor for Occidental Fruit. He retired here.

The house also has value for having been the childhood home of the Kellers' son, Rodney. In 1917, the year of his father's death, Rodney, not yet old enough for military service, left to attend Royal Military College in Kingston. He graduated in 1920, entered the permanent force, and rose in his regiment (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) until he became Lieutenant-Colonel and commander of the regiment in 1941. He commanded the 20,000 troops of the Canadian 3rd Division during the Normandy landings in 1944, and was wounded by 'friendly fire' by American bombers near Caen. Awarded the rank of Commander of the Order of the British Empire, he was invalided out of the army. He returned to Kelowna, where he served on City Council from 1949 until his death in 1954.

Source: City of Kelowna Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Dr. Keller House include its:
- small size of the house on a small corner property
- residential form, scale, and massing, as expressed by its one-storey height and rectangular plan (with several subsequent small extensions)
- medium-pitched hipped roof, which defines the form of the original cottage
- two brick chimneys
- cameo-shaped window in entrance door