Description of Historic Place

The Stagecoach House is a two and one-half storey, wood frame building, with prominent attic gables visible from Old Yale Road. It has a pyramidal roof with dormers on two sides. The front façade has unique stacked inset verandas, with arched openings on the top floor.

Heritage Value

The Stagecoach House is of value for its association with Walter James Walker, who owned the property from 1907 to 1910. Walker served as Surrey Reeve, but he is best remembered for his generosity in commissioning three Anglican churches, including St. Helen's and St. Oswald's. Walker acquired this house from J.W. Stein, who owned the property from 1889 to 1907 and is thought to have built the house circa 1900.

The Stagecoach House is significant for its association with the development of the South Westminster area. This was the location of the first commercial fish cannery on the B.C. coast, and a small community was established at Brownsville, across the Fraser River from New Westminster, at the convergence of the Yale Wagon Road and Semiahmoo Trail. Ferries connected the area to New Westminster. A two level bridge was built across the Fraser River at Brownsville in 1904, with the upper level for pedestrians and the lower level for the New Westminster Southern Railway, the Great Northern Railway (GNR), the BC Electric Railway (BCER) and the Canadian National Railway (CNR). South Westminster was already an established community and a transportation hub when the BCER established a passenger station here in 1910.

The building is also significant for its unique architectural form. It is a vernacular translation of the Colonial Revival style and features unique stacked verandas that face out to a commanding view, and give an unusual character to the overall form.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of Surrey

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Stagecoach House include its:
- location on a corner near Old Yale Road, on a steeply sloping site;
- form and massing, including rectangular plan and symmetrical front façade;
- external design features, such as the stacked full width front verandas, with square columns and arched openings on the second floor;
- cladding: cedar shingle siding, bellcast at the second storey, with some courses of decorative fish scale shingles and encircling stringcourses; and
- fenestration: double-hung 1-over-1 wood-sash windows; some windows in double-assembly; several with decorative leaded panes.