Description of Historic Place

The Howay Cottage consists of a one-and-one-half storey house in the Edwardian bungalow style and is situated on a corner residential lot in the Queen's Park neighbourhood of New Westminster. It has a rectangular footprint, surmounted by a low-hipped roof with bellcast eaves, and tongue & groove wood siding - horizontal at the main floor and vertical below. The protruding front porch has a hipped roof set lower than the main roof and supported on box beams and chamfered box columns.

Heritage Value

The Howay Cottage is important for its historic significance, in particular for its age, its representation of a way of life, and its association with the Howay family of New Westminster.

Built circa 1902 for Colin Howay, this house is a good example of an essentially-intact Edwardian bungalow that was popular with the emerging middle class of the early twentieth century. It was an affordable design and scale, but one that had aspirations to a much grander building of the same style.

This house is a good physical link to a time in New Westminster’s history when small neighbourhoods were being created by working families who were attaining a measure of economic success during the pre-World War One era. The house is also a reference to the positive impact of the BC Electric Railway on the development of neighbourhoods, which tended to grow around the route.

The importance of the Howay family to the history of New Westminster is in their relationship to Colin’s brother Frederick William Howay, who was a noted lawyer and judge, Police Commissioner and widely-published author.

As part of a Heritage Revitalization Agreeement, the Howay Cottage was relocated from the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood to 500 Fourth Avenue in the Queen's Park neighbourhood in October 2008.

Source: City of New Westminster Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Howay Cottage include its:

Siting and Context
- orientation of the house to the street

Architectural Qualities
- clarity and simplicity of form, scale and massing as expressed by its one-and-one-half storey height
- general asymmetry

Architectural Elements
- low-hipped, cascading, bellcast roofs
- deep, enclosed roof eaves with a continuous and wide frieze board
- wood cladding, horizontal at the main floor and vertical below
- flat-stock trims and corner boards
- wooden-sash, multi-paned windows, and their size, shape and placement on the elevations
- cantilevered dining room window bay, with splayed hipped roof and classically-derived trim
- open front porch, with splayed hipped roof and classically-derived trim
- use of different-coloured materials between the upper and lower portions of the exterior elevations