Description of Historic Place

15 Fitzroy Street is a wood framed, L shaped, Late Victorian Plain style home built by local businessman and Member of Parliament, Donald Nicholson. The designation encompasses the building’s exterior and parcel; it does not include the building’s interior.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of 15 Fitzroy Street lies in its association with the Nicholson Family; its Late Victorian Plain style architecture; and its importance to the Fitzroy Street streetscape.

Donald Nicholson was a Member of Parliament and successful tobacco merchant. His successful company, Hickey and Nicholson Tobacco Company Limited, was located on Prince Street. The company advertised its tobacco in the local telephone directories as “the tobacco with the flavour of good old wine”. A generous man, Nicholson built two gable end houses in the Late Victorian Plain style side by side on Fitzroy Street for his sons: Robert H. and Edward in 1914 and 1915, respectively.

15 Fitzroy Street was built in 1914 for Robert H. Nicholson. Unlike his brother Edward, who was a manager for his father’s company, Robert H. became a surveyor and engineer for the Dominion Department of Public Works. R.H. Nicholson would go on to document and create survey maps of Prince Edward Island’s coastline. His son, John Paton Nicholson, would go on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of PEI.

15 Fitzroy Street is a well preserved example of a 1915 gable end house in the Victorian Plain Style. This style appears between 1880 and 1915 in the Maritimes. It has simple lines, a steeply pitched roof accented with plain bargeboards. There are few decorative elements except for the bay window, a small rectangular window on the eastern side of the home, a verandah and a protruding belt course of wood shingles. As an example of the Late Victorian Plain style in the City, the house contributes to the Fitzroy Street streetscape.

Sources: Heritage Office, City of Charlottetown Planning Department, PO Box 98, Charlottetown, PE C1A 7K2
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Character-Defining Elements

The following character-defining elements illustrate the Late Victorian Plain style of 15 Fitzroy Street:
- The overall massing of the building
- The high gable end facing the street
- The simple, contrasting trim throughout the exterior of the building
- The wooden shingle cladding
- The attractive verandah, with its columns, balustrade and hipped roof
- The plain eaves
- The size and placement of the windows including the bay window of the first floor, decorative rectangular window on the eastern section, as well as the more plain, single and grouped windows of the upper floors.
- The size and off centre placement of the door
- The gable roof lines
Other character-defining elements include:
- The location of the building on Fitzroy Street