Description of Historic Place

The George and Mary Lake House is a two storey, wooden structure with a steeply pitched gable roof. Located in Fortune, NL, it is believed to have been constructed around 1900 by John Lake. The designation includes the house and surrounding land.

Heritage Value

The George and Mary Lake House has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Fortune because of its aesthetic and cultural values.

Aesthetically, the George and Mary Lake House is significant because it is a good regional example of a type of vernacular design once typical in the Fortune area, featuring a steeply pitched gable roof and primary entrances on the gable ends. Modest, utilitarian dwellings were often built by fishing families in small outport communities like Fortune during the early twentieth century. It is reflective of the local building tradition in the area, utilizing narrow wooden clapboard on the exterior of the house with plain flat trim dressing the windows, doors and corners. Unlike a number of early twentieth century houses in the community, this home has escaped the trend of modernization and has retained its overall shape, including the original roof form.

Of further aesthetic value is the associated fenced yard that is typical of land use patterns within the town of Fortune. While many outports show a linear arrangement of dwellings oriented towards the ocean, Fortune presents a grid-like arrangement. As a result, most dwellings had a small parcel of associated land, often accentuated with a fence. With the evolution of building styles and the expansion of the town’s residential area, this pattern of land use harkens back to an earlier period in the town’s development.

The George and Mary Lake House has cultural value as it a physical symbol of a particular time, place and occupation. In early twentieth century outport Newfoundland most fishing families built modest homes that were within the means of their similarly modest incomes. There was great uniformity in house design, a physical symbol of the homogeneity of residents in these communities.

Source: Town of Fortune Regular Council Meeting June 19, 2006.

Character-Defining Elements

All features which relate to the aesthetic and cultural value of the house including:
- steeply pitched gable roof;
- chimney style (corbelled top) and placement;
- number of storeys;
- narrow wooden clapboard;
- corner boards;
- all remaining original doors and windows;
- window size, style, trim and placement;
- size, style, trim and placement of exterior doors;
- simplicity of exterior decoration;
- size, style and placement of enclosed porch on right facade;
- entrance on rear gable end, and;
- dimension, location and orientation of house.

All features which relate to the aesthetic value of the fenced yard including:
-dimensions of fenced yard;
-unobstructed view from Eldon Street;
-existing traditional style wooden fences and locations of entrances to the site, and;
-the geographical setting of the site along Eldon Street.