Description of Historic Place

Captain Stevens House is a one-and-one-half storey Edwardian English cottage that includes a fieldstone wall along the Edmonton Avenue frontage in Penticton, British Columbia.

Heritage Value

Built in 1907, Captain Stevens House is valued for its association with its original owner, Captain I.M. Stevens, who bought 80 acres from the Southern Okanagan Land Company in 1906, the year the townsite was laid out. Stevens is notable not only for being an early settler in the townsite, but also for being a Councilor and subsequently Reeve of the fledgling municipality in 1912, a prominent real estate agent, the owner of a Main Street car dealership and garage, a war veteran and a President of the Penticton Fruit Union in its formative years. Stevens sold many of the business lots in the townsite as well as the seven acre site for the Ellis School.

Captain Stevens House is important as one of the earliest substantial houses built on the new townsite and the largest built in Penticton at the time. It is an excellent and intact example of an Edwardian Classical-Revival house with a symmetrical form and high-quality use of original materials and craftsmanship. The fieldstone wall, which extends west of the property, is a reminder that the property originally fronted Main Street.

SOURCE: City of Penticton Civic Files

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of Captain Stevens House include its:

-Edwardian Classical-Revival form of the house including its hipped roof, central dormer and full-façade porch
-Classical detailing including the six porch rails, decorative gable truss, overhanging eaves with exposed rafter ends, and the two large chimneys
-original fieldstone wall
-original entrance with leaded-glass sidelights
-eye-brow gable over front door