Description of Historic Place

This one-and-one-half storey vernacular Island Ell shaped house at 217 Notre Dame Street is situated on the north side of the street. Built around 1877, it may be the elder citizen on this block. It features a beautifully preserved single storey sunporch and other well preserved Gothic Revival style details which attest to its age. The registration includes the parcel and the building.

Heritage Value

The residence at 217 Notre Dame Street has heritage value for its well preserved Gothic Revival details and as the home of several prominent citizens who contributed to the advancement of the town of Summerside.

It is believed that the house was constructed for tailor, Albert Yates Clark and his wife Emily D. Schurman in 1878. A mention of his business in an 1881 issue of "The Pioneer" stated: "Mr. Clark has been in the business for about ten years and has been considered one of the fashionable tailors of the town... He keeps half a dozen hands at work and is advertising for as many more." Sometime after 1884, he and his wife moved to Moncton and later to the Boston area.

Mr. and Mrs. William Reid purchased the house in 1883. Mr. Reid was 34 years of age and a well established merchant with a general store in St. Eleanors and a branch store in Summerside. In June 1881, he had married Sophia Deinstadt, a sister of the Methodist minister, T.J. Deinstadt. In 1894, Mr. Reid decided to close his Summerside store and relocate his household to St. Eleanors. The house was advertised in the newspaper: "To Let - My Cottage on Notre Dame St., Containing nine rooms, kitchen and scullery. Heated throughout with hot air. Hard and soft water in the kitchen. Good stable and garden..."

The Reid family remained in St. Eleanors until 1902, which was the year that Mr. Reid died at the age of 53. Mrs. Reid, along with her five children, moved back to Summerside and later went to Charlottetown. The house was rented from 1907 to 1910 by Frank McDonald who came to Summerside from Sydney, Nova Scotia as the contractor for the breakwater at McCallum's Point.

Mrs. Reid returned to Summerside in 1912 and lived in the house until 1916 when she went to Manitoba to live with her married daughter, Katherine Porter. She came back to Summerside around 1920, but left in 1922 to live with her children in various places until 1929. In that year she had the house remodelled, but once again left it in 1930, never to live in the town again. However, it was not until after her death in 1951 that the house left the Reid family.

In 1930, the occupant of the house became R.S.P. Jardine, who moved to Summerside as the manager of the Bank of Commerce. He was the son of David Jardine, a farmer in Freetown who had entered the service of the bank in 1909. He married Margaret Ratchford of Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1926. After ten years of prominence in Summerside, he became the manager of the bank branch in Charlottetown in 1940.

Mr. and Mrs. John Boates rented the house in 1945 and lived there for the rest of their lives. John Boates (b. 1882) was a carpenter by trade and after coming to Summerside in the 1930s worked for contractor Ernest Morrison and also was foreman of the Willow Hill Fox Ranch in Sherbrooke. He and his wife, nee Maisie Ramsay, had 4 sons and 2 daughters. In 1954 their son Erle, who was a successful management consultant in New York, purchased the house for his parents from the Reid estate. John Boates died in 1964 and his widow remained in the house with her daughter, Jennie Crossman.

In 1972, Erle Boates deeded the house to his sister Jennie, whose second husband was Frederick Gallant. In 1999, she deeded it to her son Ralph Crossman. Upon his death in 2006, the property passed from three generations of the Boates family. The purchasers carried out an extensive restoration of the house and sold it to its current owner that same year.

Source: City of Summerside, Heritage Property Profile

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the house is shown in the following character-defining elements:

- the massing and form of this house with an Ell footprint
- the steeply pitched gable roof with asphalt shingles
- the eave returns, moulded entablature, window caps
- the original placement and symmetrical arrangement of windows on all elevations
- the wood clapboard cladding
- the central bracketed bay window with mansard roof on the south elevation
- the Romanesque or round arch window in the dormer of the north extension east elevation