Description of Historic Place

The historic place is a one-and-one-half-storey wood-frame house built around 1914 and located at 1481 Richter Street, in Kelowna's North End neighbourhood.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the house at 1481 Richter Street lies primarily in its long association with a prominent family active in early governmental and educational affairs. It is also valued as a good example of straightforward house design and construction in Kelowna around the outbreak of the First World War.

This house was built in or before 1914. Its original occupant is not known, but from 1919 until 1964 it was the home of Alexander Dougal Marshall and Constance Marshall.

Alexander Marshall (1882-1964) came to Kelowna in 1919. He worked as district engineer for the B.C. Water Rights Branch, handling water rights matters, a very important aspect of the regional agricultural economy, throughout the Okanagan, Similkameen, and Boundary regions, and gaining a great deal of respect. After his retirement he served as a magistrate in Kelowna from 1950 to 1956.

Constance Marshall's field was teaching. In a little room upstairs in this house she coached many young people through their High School Matriculation Exams. After Alexander Marshall's death, she retired to live with relatives in England.

The cross-gabled form, with an asymmetrical front porch, is a vestige of Victorian picturesque composition, but the relatively broad proportions, front gable, and deep eaves with exposed rafters are all more characteristic of the architecture of the period.

Source: City of Kelowna Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the House at 1481 Richter Street include its:
- location on Richter Street in Kelowna's North End neighbourhood
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its one-and-one-half-storey height and rectangular plan
- medium-pitched, cross-gabled roof with exposed wood rafters beneath the deep eaves
- entrance porch, with low-pitched roof, supported by wood posts, and wood balustrade
- narrow, horizontal, wood beveled siding with wide wood trim
- four-over-one, double-hung wood-sash windows, with wide wood trim on the upper floor
- mature landscaping around the site