Description of Historic Place

Brett Property Municipal Heritage Site includes a house, two outbuildings and fencing located at 36 Brown’s Point, Joe Batt’s Arm in the Town of Joe Batt’s Arm-Barr’d Islands-Shoal Bay, Fogo Island, NL. Brett House consists of a two-and-one-half-storey wooden dwelling with a steep-gabled roof and a two-and-one-half-storey central tower, built as an addition to a two-storey wooden house with a mid-pitch roof and one-storey linhay. The municipal heritage designation includes the house, two outbuildings behind it, and wooden fencing surrounding the site.

Heritage Value

The Brett Property has been designated a municipal heritage site because it holds aesthetic, historic and cultural values.

Built between the 1870s and 1913, the Brett House has aesthetic value as it is a representative example of the types of houses built during the period in the Notre Dame Bay area, as well as being a good example of the detailed craftsmanship often employed by vernacular builders in Newfoundland and Labrador. The scale and massing of the two-storey section built by John Brett in the 1870s would have been common in the community at that time. When John’s son Charles took possession of the home, he moved the house across the street and added an entire new home to the older one. This addition mimics the original in its symmetry and orderliness, but also speaks to the craftsmanship of the younger Brett, who hand-cut each shingle used to clad the exterior walls of the house. These scalloped shingles were a common element in homes built in the region during the same period. A central front tower serves as an indication of Charles’ design preferences as well as marking the evolution of housing styles in the region.

The context in which Brett House is situated enhances its aesthetic value. The building exists in a traditional Newfoundland setting, with outbuildings in close proximity and fencing surrounding the property. There are very few examples of original outport homes with the majority of their outbuildings still remaining. Outbuildings on the Brett property, which include a store (fisheries storage shed) and a cellar, were designed for practical use, employing rough materials, simple design elements and utilitarian construction techniques.

The Brett House is historically valuable as a physical example of way of life that saw people make great use of the resources available to them. Charles Brett worked an existing building into the design of his own family home. Such reuse of materials was not uncommon in rural Newfoundland and Labrador, where new building materials were not always readily available without expending great personal time and effort.

The outbuildings at the Brett Property are reminders of a subsistence economy which demanded that food be stored for both animal and human consumption. Most properties also had extensive fences to enclose gardens because livestock were free to roam communities in the summertime. Regulations regarding roaming livestock and a decline in the number of families raising animals have resulted in such fences disappearing from the landscape.

The Brett Property has cultural value because its proximity to the shoreline is typical of settlement patterns for the area. It reflects the importance of the ocean to the livelihoods of the residents of Joe Batt’s Arm and Fogo Island. Furthermore, Brett House now operates as a museum, highlighting the significance of the property in the cultural landscape and making it a focus for cultural tourism, heritage preservation and education.

Source: Motion 06-174, Town Council Meeeting Minutes, Town of Joe Batt’s Arm-Barr’d Islands-Shoal Harbour, 2007/08/14

Character-Defining Elements

Those elements of the house’s vernacular design including:

-distinct form and architectural details of the two distinct house types combined to form one building;
-two-storey form of older section and two-and-one-half-storey addition;
-mid-pitched roof on older section;
-steep-gable roof on addition;
-wooden roof shingles;
-boxed eave returns;
-heart motif drops on addition;
-mock exposed roof beams on addition;
-narrow clapboard on older section and rear of addition;
-scalloped and sawtooth shingle sheathing on addition;
-corner boards;
-window size, style, trim and placement;
-six-paned coloured glass windows;
-size, style, trim and placement of exterior doors;
-size, style, trim and placement of windows and door in front tower;
-pedimented shelf with bargeboard decoration above door in front tower;
-pedimented shelf above linhay door;
-size, style, trim and location of open porch on front facade;
-location of linhay on older section;
-original size, style and placement of chimneys;
-stone pile with bracing foundation;
-dimensions, location and orientation of building towards the road.

Those pertaining to the outbuildings and fences including:

-original form, small scale, single storey outbuildings;
-original pitched roof types;
-original type of roofing material;
-narrow clapboard;
-corner boards;
-window size, style, trim and placement;
-size, style, trim and placement of exterior doors;
-style and placement of metal hardware on doors;
-exterior red ochre colour;
-location and orientation of outbuildings in relation to the house;
-and style, placement and white finish of wooden paling fence.