Description of Historic Place

Set on a single-family residential lot, the Dr. Sinclair House is a two and one-half storey symmetrical Foursquare residence located on a corner lot on 58A Avenue. The house is situated in a medium density residential area adjacent to low-rise apartments and condominiums.

Heritage Value

The property is significant for its association with Dr. Frederick Douglas Sinclair (1884-1951), a prominent figure in Surrey's development, who moved to Surrey in 1911 to assume the medical practice of the retiring Dr. Sutherland. Sinclair returned east to marry, but returned in 1913 when he was appointed as Municipal Medical Health officer, a position he held until his death. In 1914, the Sinclairs purchased Dr. Sutherland's house, which already contained a waiting room, office and surgery. Dr. Sinclair served overseas during the First World War with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. Upon his return in 1919, he helped organize a branch of the Canadian Legion of British Empire Service League and became the advisor for the Surrey Victorian Order of Nurses. Throughout the time of his practice in Surrey, he typified the life of a rural family doctor, attending to the needs of his patients without billing them, expecting them to pay if they could. During the Second World War, Dr. Sinclair was the only doctor left serving Surrey, at the time the biggest municipality in the British Empire. Sinclair was a respected community leader, and his funeral in 1951 at Cloverdale United Church was the largest in Surrey's history. After the Sinclair family left the house, it was sold for removal, and was relocated to this lot and used as a boarding house.

Constructed circa 1900, the Dr. Sinclair House is valued as an early example of a Foursquare style dwelling. This type of residential architecture was often detailed with Colonial Revival references, as seen in this example with its ornamental front door surround with a broken pediment. Such detailing was the result of such homes being constructed from, or influenced by, widely-used pattern book designs available across the United States and Canada.

Source: Heritage Planning Files, City of Surrey

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of Dr. Sinclair House include its:
- form, scale and massing as expressed by its two and one-half storey plus basement height and rectangular plan, with one storey extension to the west and a projecting bay window on the east elevation
- low-pitched bellcast hipped roof with three symmetrical bellcast hipped dormers
- concrete foundation and wood-frame construction
- Foursquare style elements such as the symmetrical elevations, front entrance assembly with sidelights, square floor plan with central hall, and cubic massing
- additional exterior elements such as the glazed and panelled front door with original hardware, glazed multi-paned garden door on the east elevation, second-storey door on the rear elevation, two red brick chimneys (one external and one internal) and plain window surrounds
- original wooden siding under later asbestos shingles
- symmetrical disposition of wooden-sash windows, including single and multiple-assembly 4-over-1 and 6-over-1 double-hung windows and 3-over-1 double-hung dormer windows