Description of Historic Place

A Georgian, two-storey, wooden building built between 1775 and 1797. Built to the streetline, Solomon House is located on the corner of Townsend and Cornwallis Streets in Old Town Lunenburg, a Heritage Conservation District in Lunenburg, NS. Municipal heritage designation includes the building and surrounding property. Solomon House is now a bed and breakfast.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of Solomon House lies in its age, architecture and association with well-known members of early Lunenburg society. The house was built in the late eighteenth century for merchant and sawmill owner Henry Koch. The building passed to the Rudolph family, then in 1849 to George T. Solomon, a local judge and well-known figure in Nova Scotian legal circles.

Solomon House is an excellent example of Georgian building techniques in Lunenburg, in particular the British Classical tradition. The building has a symmetrical appearance, giving it a sense of repose, orderliness and prosperity. It is a large building located at the streetline, with a five-bay facade and a massive stone foundation. Both the building interior and exterior have been substantially restored. A central frontispiece was also removed in the 1970s in the process of restoration.

Source: Heritage Designation File 66400-40-04, Town of Lunenburg.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of Solomon House consist of:

- all structural elements in the Georgian tradition, including the massive stone foundation, the symmetrical appearance of the house, with five balanced bays, two central chimneys and a central door, orientation of the interior rooms around a central staircase and central fireplaces, a medium pitched roof and post and beam with plank wall construction;
- all decorative elements of the Georgian tradition, including moulded eaves return, balanced, six-over-six windows, tight under the eaves, finishing board at basement level and wide, fluted cornerboards, side and transom windows around the central front door, and reed trim ornamentation;
- all elements characteristic of Lunenburg buildings of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century including clapboard cladding, with endboards and finishing boards at the basement level, and close proximity to the street, with the front door opening immediately onto the street, with little land surrounding the building.