Description of Historic Place

The historic place is the one-and-one-half-storey W.R. Trench House, built in 1911 and located at 784 Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna's North Central neighbourhood.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the W.R. Trench House lies in its association with W.R. Trench, who was prominent in civic and commercial affairs in the community, and with subsequent owners, who contributed to the commercial sector. It is also valued for its architecture. There is value in its growth over the years, as the original cottage was enlarged to accommodate the changing expectations of homeowners.

William Robert and Elizabeth Laura Trench moved to Kelowna from Manitoba in 1908. William Trench opened a pharmacy in partnership with a Mr. Currie. Soon he had his own company, W.R. Trench Ltd., which was located on Bernard Avenue at the corner of Water Street. He operated this until 1935, when he sold it to G.A. Elliott and J.D. Whitham, who retained the Trench name.

William Trench served his community for more than 20 years. He sat on the school board from 1912 to 1919, and was president of the Board of Trade in 1926 and 1927. He was an alderman in 1932 and 1933, and mayor in 1934 and 1935.

The historic place has value as well for its architecture. The Trenches built it in 1911. The original form, a small, squarish, hipped-roof cottage with a front porch, can still be discerned. It is now engulfed in subsequent additions, which seem to enhance, rather than detract from, the heritage character.

Around 1925 to 1928, the Trenches built a new home on Pendozi (now Pandosy) Street. In 1936 they moved to Vancouver. The house went through several owners in the next two decades, including Harold S. and Grace L. Dalley, he a checker for the Canadian National Railway, who owned it in 1948. In 1956 it was bought by Adolph T. (1908-1969) and Florence C. Roth, who resided here until the 1960s.

Adolph Roth came to Kelowna from Camrose, Alberta, in 1929. He first worked in the cannery on Ellis Street, and in the early 1930s began driving the horse-drawn delivery wagon for Paddy Cameron's Guisachan Dairy. In 1939, he moved into town and became the distributor for the Kelowna Creamery, then in 1950 for NOCA Dairies, operating under the name Roth's Dairy Products, which had as many as eighteen employees and fifteen trucks.

Source: City of Kelowna Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the W.R. Trench House include its:
- location on Lawrence Avenue in Kelowna's North Central neighbourhood
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its one-and-one-half-storey height and rectangular plan with extensions
- small bay window on the street elevation
- medium-pitched hipped roof with gabled additions
- small, gabled-roof dormer projection facing the side yard
- wood fascia, which extends across the gable facing the street
- two corbelled brick chimneys
- recessed open corner entrance porch
- wide wood bargeboards, which wrap around the house perimeter
- second-floor fenestration, with fixed windows, decorative painted mullions and plain narrow wood trim
- ground-floor fenestration, with fixed wood-sash windows and plain, narrow wood trim
- mature landscaping on the side yards