Description of Historic Place

Yeo House is a three storey Gothic Revival inspired country mansion built for James Yeo Junior in 1865. It is located in Port Hill’s Green Park Shipbuilding Museum. The designation includes the footprint of the building.

Heritage Value

Yeo House is a designated building because of its association with the shipbuilding history of Prince Edward Island and due to the home's Gothic Revival design and construction. During the mid to late eighteen hundreds, the shipbuilding industry boomed on the Island. As a symbol of their success in this industry, James Yeo Junior, the son of the shipping magnate James Yeo, had the home constructed in 1865. The Yeos' of Port Hill were some of the most successful shipbuilders in the Province. They produced or owned shares in close to 20 percent of the Island’s total output of ships. The home’s proximity to the former Yeo shipyard is significant because few shipping magnates would have built their homes within sight, let alone earshot, of the shipyards that generated their wealth. Following the collapse of the shipbuilding industry on Prince Edward Island, the community of Port Hill reverted to a farming community and subsequently, the Yeo House became an unusually large farmhouse.

During the 1960s the Prince Edward Island government acquired Yeo House, and the land surrounding it, for use as a Provincial Park. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Green Park was developed into a museum devoted to the Island’s shipbuilding past. The Yeo House's architectural value lies in its design and construction. With its sharp pitched roof, round headed second and third floor windows, decorative barge board trim and distinctive octagonal cupola, it stands as an excellent example of rural Gothic Revival inspired architecture. The home features attractive verandahs that add to the grand nature of the house.

Source: PEI Heritage Advisory Committee Files

Character-Defining Elements

The following character-defining elements define the Gothic Revival style of the house:
- The octagonal cupola
- The generous verandahs
- The size, shape and position of the regular and round headed windows
- The position of the doors
- The shutters that frame each window
- The decorative barge board or gingerbread
- The entablatures
- The shape of the roofline and gables
- The exterior palette of materials
- The relationship of the building to the surrounding area, which is the former site of the Yeo Shipyard