Description of Historic Place

The Andrew Lovitt House is a one-and-a-half storey Gothic Revival style house built around 1865 for Andrew Lovitt, a prominent Yarmouth businessman and ship owner. It was originally built within the town of Yarmouth, but was moved to its present location in the community of Milton Highlands 1897. The municipal heritage designation applies to the house and its residential lot.

Heritage Value

The Andrew Lovitt House is valued for its historical association with the Andrew Lovitt family and for its relatively unaltered Gothic Revival style of architecture.

Andrew Lovitt, the original owner of this house, was one of several well known Yarmouth ship-owning members of the Lovitt family and very prominent in the Yarmouth business community. He apparently had this house built around 1865 on Vancouver Street in the town of Yarmouth, at the time of his second marriage. After his death in 1883 the property was inherited by his son, William Dodge Lovitt, also a shipowner, who retained it until his death in 1894. The property was next inherited by William D. Lovitt’s son, William L. Lovitt, another shipowner, who resided in this house until the late 1890s when he decided to build a new, grander home on the same lot. The family apparently continued to reside here while the new house was built on the west side of and nearly touching this house. When the new home was completed in 1897, this building was sold to William L. Lovitt’s cousin, Annie B. (Lovitt) Horton, and later the same year was moved about two kilometres to its present site outside of the town limits.

The Gothic Revival architecture of the Andrew Lovitt House is evident in its steeply pitched gabled roof and steep cross gables and its simple ornamentation. Most of its trim elements have remained intact and there have been few alterations to the original structure of the house.

Source: Municipal Heritage Property files: the Andrew Lovitt House; located at 400 Main Street, Yarmouth, NS..

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Andrew Lovitt House include:

- location on a corner lot near the Yarmouth town limits;
- residential use.

The character-defining elements of the Gothic Revival style of the Andrew Lovitt House include:

- wood frame construction;
- one-and-a-half storeys with a lower one-and-a-half storey side ell;
- steeply pitched gable roof and cross gables;
- prominent central chimney;
- asymmetrical three bay façade;
- off-centre entrance;
- wraparound veranda with spindle-work balustrade;
- double hung sash windows;
- most windows have six-over-one glazing and pedimented crowns;
- paired windows in south side of ell;
- narrow clapboard cladding;
- wide corner-boards, frieze-boards and verge-boards.