Description of Historic Place

The Thomas and Alice Morgan House is a small-scale, two-storey wood-framed house with a front gable, located mid-block.

Heritage Value

This Romantic Revival-style home is valued for its age, architectural style and cultural significance.

Built in 1939, the Thomas and Alice Morgan House is a good example of an inter-War house. It is one of seventeen homes built that year in the Queen's Park neighbourhood that are still extant. Reminiscent of an English cottage, this Cottage Tudor-style house was faithfully restored to its original design in the 1980s, thus giving it added importance as an example of the value that the community places on these charming 1930s homes.

The architectural value lies in its balanced proportions, projecting and complex-gabled front room, with archway and gabled dormer, stucco cladding and multi-paned windows. The house was known locally as the 'Teddy Bear House' during the mid-Twentieth Century because of its disctinctive front garden shrubs.

The cultural history of the house is evidenced in its connection with the Kirk and Morgan families. This house sits on land that once was part of the Kirk family 1908 home (that still sits next door). It remained in their family until 1940, when it was sold to Thomas and Alice Morgan. Mr. Morgan was the General Manager for Westminster Shook Lumber Mill in the Queensborough neighbourhood. Alice's father, Ralph Robinson, was the City's head gardener in charge of Queen's Park. It was he who built the Japanese pond in the back yard and designed the general landscaping on the property.

The house is also valued by the community for certain original interior features, such as an unusual fireplace with rare curved tiling, and a 1908 Royal Doulton powder room sink that was formerly a part of the Kirk House and was willed to the Morgan family.

Source: City of New Westminster Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Thomas and Alice Morgan House include its:

Siting, Context and Landscape
- grass boulevard between street and sidewalk
- front garden

Architectural Elements
- diminutive scale and cottage-like massing
- complex cross-gabled shingle roof form, with archway and gabled dormer
- multi-paned windows
- brick chimneys
- architectural turret
- stucco cladding
- curved wooden roof brackets