Description of Historic Place

The Dunn-McQuoid House Provincial Historic Site is a two and a half storey wood clapboard house, situated on a parcel of land at 126 Water Street in the town of St. Andrews.

Heritage Value

In the late eighteenth century, thousands of United Empire Loyalists left the newly created United States to settle British territory to the north. One of the town’s earliest settlers, United Empire Loyalist John Dunn, came to St. Andrews from New York in 1784. John Dunn brought with him the frame and many of the materials used to build this house, reported to be the first two-storey house erected in St. Andrews. The heritage value for this place lies in its association with John Dunn who contributed greatly to the improvement and prosperity of the town, serving as sheriff and collector of customs. The house is jointly named for the McQuoid family, who occupied the same residence from 1900 to 1976. Although changes have been made over time, the house offers a sense of its architectural past as the residence of a prominent Loyalist on an urban lot in the centre of the town. Source: New Brunswick Culture and Sport Secretariat, Heritage Branch, Site File # 10.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of Dunn-McQuoid House include: - setting of the building, tight to the front (South) and side (East) property lines, allowing both a maximum rear yard and proximity to the street, similar to the majority of the residential and mercantile structures on Water Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of the town Overall Vernacular approach of the structure with Georgian design arrangements such as: - distinguished on the exterior by its symmetrical layout of five window bays on both floors of the main façade with a central door/porch on the main level; - the low hip roof with two small gabled dormers on each roof pitch; - the rectangular massing and overall restraint and lack of ornamentation. - (replica) exterior materials, exemplifying the original cladding, trim and fenestration, including the horizontal wood clapboards, window trim, unadorned corner boards, skirt boards, profiled cornice and soffit boards, and 12 over 12 double-hung windows; - very old wood horizontal platform/bracket with an inflected curve above the wainscot on the first stair landing; - depression in the wainscot at the same landing indicates the location of a former exterior window, since removed; - original staircase including the original painted railing with its square wood balusters and fluted square newel post; - painted chair rails and wainscoting with wood flush panels throughout the interior hallways and staircase.