Description of Historic Place

This Maritime Vernacular farmhouse is located in the community of Guernsey Cove near the Northumberland Strait. It is a composite of two former homes in the community. The main house with the centre gable dormer was constructed around 1870 by William Beck, while the rectangular attached section at the back of the main house was constructed earlier in the 1850s by descendants of Henry Brehaut. An original Island sandstone foundation is under the Brehaut section. Other elements include the wood shingle cladding and roof, the central dormer with eave returns and the two-over-one windows.

Heritage Value

The house is valued for its Maritime Vernacular architectural style and for its historical association with the Beck and Brehaut families of Guernsey Cove.

All of the Becks in Prince Edward Island are descended from the twelve children of Vere Beck (1783-1878) and his wife, Elizabeth Marfleet (1787-1867), who arrived in PEI in 1813 from Crayford, Kent County, England. In 1814, Vere Beck purchased 100 acres of land in Guernsey Cove from John Cambridge, the proprietor of Lot 64. He soon built their first home, a log cabin. He would later sell half of the land, 50 acres, on the east side of his property to Henry Brehaut (1767-1848), another settler from England (Guernsey in the Channel Islands) who also was an adherent of the Methodist faith. Henry Brehaut was a cooper who made barrels.

Vere Beck was an engraver or "worker in metals" in England, but in PEI, in addition to managing his land which he paid for by cutting lumber for Cambridge's shipyard, he became involved in politics. He served as a member of the House of Assembly from 1837 to 1840, which was then meeting in a local Charlottetown pub!

By the 1970s a descendant, Windsor Beck, was living in what was the fourth house on the site. After he moved to a nursing home in the early 1980s, it began deteriorating.

It was rescued by a descendant of Henry Brehaut, an architect from Boston, who moved it in 1998 to the neighbouring Brehaut property and attached it to the 1850s Brehaut House there. The Beck house was then renovated to have many of its original elements restored or retained.

Source: Culture and Heritage Division, PEI Department of Tourism and Culture, Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8
File #: 4310-20/K6

Character-Defining Elements

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

- the wood frame and one-and-one-half storey massing
- the wood shingle cladding
- the gable roofline with eave returns
- the central roof dormer with eave returns and the window with broken pediment above
- the symmetrical facade with central entrance door which has transom and sidelights and a pediment above
- the various two-over-one windows
- the rectangular extension (Brehaut section) at the back of the Maritime Vernacular style house (Beck section)