Description of Historic Place

The Smith/Wilson Residence is a one-and-one-half storey late-Victorian cottage, located in one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods, adjacent to the downtown core. The historic place is confined to the building footprint.

Heritage Value

Built around 1889, the Smith/Wilson Residence is a very good example of a vernacular, late-Victorian cottage. The simple, front-gable rectangular form has been embellished with Italianate-style bays at the front and north side. Although there have been changes to the building over time, most notably the application of modern reproduction fish-scale shingles and wood siding over the original shingles, the essential character of the building is intact.

The Smith/Wilson Residence is a good example of the type of housing that was built by the commercial class in an overwhelmingly working-class neighbourhood. While most of the adjacent houses are extremely modest, the Smith/Wilson Residence is relatively more ornate and testifies to the neighbourhood’s housing and population diversity.

Source: City of Nanaimo Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Smith/Wilson Residence include:

- all of the original elements of a middle-class, late-Victorian cottage, as expressed in the simple form, bay windows on the east and north elevations and panel molding under bays
- minor setback from the street