Description of Historic Place

The Mayne House is an imposing and impressive feature in the rural agricultural community of Emerald, Prince Edward Island. It is a large, ornate, two storey house, with stacked bay windows, a centre dormer and verandah with gingerbread trim. On either side of the main section, are 1 ½ story additions with centre dormers. The side additions also have covered verandahs with turned posts and gingerbread trim.

Heritage Value

The Mayne House is a large ornate multi-generational country home located in the agricultural community of Emerald, Prince Edward Island. The house was constructed between 1860 and 1868 by John Mayne (1839-1909) on land received from his father Joseph Mayne (1803-1892) who emigrated from Sussex, England and settled in the nearby community of Springfield.

John Mayne and his wife Mary Jane Pickering (d. 1921) raised a family of 13 children in the 1860s house and farmed 254 acres.

The original centre section of the house contained four bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, small pantry and a parlour. In 1907 the house was enlarged with wing additions to the centre house and was embellished with dormers, stacking bay windows and gingerbread trim. The additions were prior to John Mayne's son, George's 1908 marriage to Minnie B. Paynter (1882-1964) of Burlington. The renovations resulted in doubling the living spaces of kitchens, dining rooms, pantries, parlours, porches hallways and closets. The multi-generational house was home to George Mayne (1882-1966) and Minnie and their growing family. The Maynes attended Summerfield United Church where George was an elder for forty-one years. He is also remembered for sponsoring and encouraging the Emerald Cheese Factory and was a school trustee for several terms. Mrs. Mary Mayne lived in the house until her death in 1921 and is buried along with her husband in the United Church Cemetery in Freetown.

The Maynes had a mixed farming operation specializing in Ayrshire cattle and potatoes and were among the leaders in modernizing farming methods. They were among the first to graduate to a horse-powered thresher and their first binder was purchased in 1888 and the hay loader in 1902. A telephone was installed in the house in 1906, a first for Emerald.

The house and farm passed to George's son, Leeland (1914-1991) a leader in agriculture and dairying practices, a school trustee and director of ADL (Amalgamated Dairies Limited). Leeland and his wife Violet (Todd) (1925-) held their 1948 wedding reception with forty guests easily accommodated in the large house. Violet operated Woodland View Tourist Home here, hosting over 2,000 guests from 1975-1994, providing them with fine PEI hospitality and a glimpse of life in rural Prince Edward Island.
The house has been largely unaltered over the years, except for interior modern conveniences. In 1956 the house was wired for electricity. In 1992, some replacement of windows and doors were installed. More recently, the south elevation was re-shingled in 2017 to maintain the heritage look and feel of the property.

The farm passed to Leeland and Violet's son Barry & his wife Carol Mayne. Carol continues to live in the house and helps operate the large dairy farm with her son Stephen Mayne, the 6th generation of the Mayne family to reside in this impressive house and maintain this vast property.

This is a rare example of this type of architecture in rural PEI. The Mayne House continues to be valued for its age, architectural style, connections with the tourism industry, as an important asset to the landscape of its community and for its lengthy association with the Mayne family.

Source: Heritage Places files, Dept. of Fisheries, Tourism, Sport and Culture, Charlottetown, PE
File # : 4310-20/M56

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Mayne House in Emerald is shown in the following heritage character-defining elements:

- the scale and massing of the house
- the wood shingle cladding, with some fancy cut shingles on upper storey and surrounding the main front entrance
- the board and batten detailing in the peaks of the upper storey bay window dormers and the wall trim
- the pitch and slope of the rooflines
- the stacked bay windows on the main section of the house, with decorative eave bracketing
- the two centre dormer 1 ½ storey additions on either side of the main house
- the size and placement of wood windows
- the arched windows in the dormers, with decorative hood moulding
- the covered verandahs on the front elevation, with gingerbread trim, and turned posts
- the corner boards

Further contributing heritage character-defining elements:

- the location of the home on a large working farm in the rural community of Emerald