Description of Historic Place

The historic place is Lequime's Store, built in the original townsite in 1904 and located at 229-233 Bernard Avenue, at the western end of the Downtown area.

Heritage Value

Lequime's Store is valued for its association with pioneer Eli Lequime and his family, and as a rare representative of the period of rapid growth in the original townsite at the time of municipal incorporation in 1905. Lequime's Store was Kelowna's first dressed-stone building and is its oldest surviving commercial building. Its different uses over time reflected the growing and changing Kelowna community.

The building's value resides in part in its having been commissioned by Bernard and Leon Lequime, developers of the Kelowna townsite (hence the names Bernard and Leon Avenues) and the sons of renowned pioneer Eli Lequime. The elder Lequime arrived at Okanagan Mission in 1861. He started a store on his ranch there, and operated the first blacksmith shop, post office, and hotel-saloon. Sons Bernard and Leon laid out the townsite of Kelowna on the lakefront in 1892, after the CPR established steamer service on Okanagan Lake, connecting with the railway at Okanagan Landing near Vernon. As developers of the townsite, the Lequimes built their general store in the prime location, directly opposite the steamer landing.

Lequime's Store initiated the second phase of Kelowna's growth, in 1904. The Lequime brothers, probably impelled by a series of fires that had struck the small downtown, moved their original wood-frame store one lot east and in its place erected this, the first stone building in Kelowna. It was built by William Haug, with squared stone quarried on Knox Mountain. This second stage of downtown building, which continued until the outbreak of World War I, saw stone and brick structures filling the entire street frontage, replacing the earlier detached, wooden 1890s-era buildings.

The history of differing uses reflects the growing and changing community over many decades. In 1913 Bernard Lequime sold the store to L. Richmond of Vancouver and moved to San Francisco. Richmond's Ready-to-Wear and Dry Goods Co. failed about 1916, and the building was converted to a movie theatre by Mrs. Raymer, after the Opera House in the Raymer Block was destroyed by fire in that year. The cinema operated until the purpose-built Empress Theatre opened in 1919.

Pasquale 'Cap' Capozzi, later of such importance in the wine industry, had his first grocery store in this building. In the 1930s and 1940s the building was divided and occupied by a cafe and government offices (including the Unemployment Insurance Office until 1955). For many years after 1955 Thomas 'Scotty' Angus, well-known locally for his weekly program of old-country music on CKOV radio, had his second-hand and antique business in the building. In the 1970s several restaurants occupied the building, followed by nightclub use after 1982. The building is at present divided into three small food-sellers, largely serving the tourist and amusement trade.

Source: City of Kelowna, Planning Department, File No. 6800-02

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of Lequime's Store include:
- Plain, small, simply decorated, masonry one-storey facade on Bernard Avenue
- Masonry construction, built of squared stone and brick
- Original local red brick with a variety of design details, including header courses, dentil-like corbels, and inset pilasters
- Knox Mountain grey stone on the lane elevation
- Three equally-sized, glazed bays
- Recent renovations sympathetic with the original character