Description of Historic Place

The Dudgeon Farm House is a two-storey wood-frame Foursquare residence, identifiable for its symmetrical facade, hipped roof, front shed dormer and full width verandah. Located outside central Kelowna, this farm house is now located within a suburban residential context, on a large corner lot on Leathead Road at Pinetree Street, in a setting of mature plantings and fruit trees.

Heritage Value

The Dudgeon Farm House is valued as a fine example of the Foursquare style, exhibiting characteristic elements such as simple cubic massing, a broad, low-pitched hipped roof and full-width open front verandah. The Foursquare style provided a rational expression that suited the needs of farmers, especially those with large families. It maximized the volume achieved within the building envelope through a logical floor plan with central access to all rooms. The broad hipped roof covered the square plan with a minimum of framing. Although utilitarian, this basic form could then be decorated with stylistic elements that gave the building more architectural pretension, in this case repetitive eave brackets, varied claddings and interesting window placement.

Furthermore, this site is of historical significance for its association with the Dudgeon family and their long-term ownership of the property. In 1918, Joseph and Sarah Dudgeon moved to Kelowna from Calgary and bought this house, built in 1910, and the surrounding orchard that had been planted in 1907. By the late 1920s Sarah had been widowed but maintained the farm operation with the assistance of Charles Joseph Dudgeon. The Dudgeons were active community members. Sarah Dudgeon served as a school trustee and life-member of the Rutland Women's Institute and Charles Dudgeon served as a director of the Rutland Farmers Institute.

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

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Dudgeon Farm House include its:
- large corner lot with a south facing orientation, in a setting of mature plantings, grassed lawns and fruit trees;
- residential form, scale and massing, as expressed by its two-storey height (with crawlspace), full-width open front verandah and regular, square plan with one-storey rear wing;
- low-pitched hipped roof with front shed dormer and gabled roof on addition;
- concrete foundation and wood-frame construction
- cladding, such as horizontal lapped wooden siding with cornerboards on the first storey, verandah balustrade and rear wing, and cedar shingle siding on the second storey and dormer;
- additional exterior details, such as its verandah with hipped roof, paired square columns and closed balustrades, two-storey rear porch (enclosed porch below, sleeping porch above), two corbelled brick chimneys (one interior, one exterior), and bracketed eaves with simple frieze; and
- regular, symmetrical fenestration with double-hung 1-over-1 wooden-sash windows (some in double-assembly) and 4-pane dormer windows.