Description of Historic Place

The Thorson Cottage (1910) is a small, one-storey, frame building, raised slightly
above the ground, with a wooden porch at the front and a deck to the rear. The shingled, hipped roof
extends outward to cover the verandah at the front of the building. A rear addition has a very shallow,
asymmetrical gable roof. The cottage stands at #50 on the west side of 4th Avenue in Gimli, Manitoba.
The municipal designation applies to the lot and the buildings on it.

Heritage Value

The Thorson Cottage is valued primarily as a well-preserved example of the type of
summer cottage or cabin typically built in the Gimli area in the first half of the 20th century. Dating
from 1910, it is an early example as Gimli became a popular destination only after train service from
Winnipeg arrived in 1906. . Like most such buildings, its window openings were originally screened, and
could be shut against the weather with wooden shutters; like most such buildings, many of the openings
were glazed decades ago.
The cottage has a high degree of interior and exterior physical integrity, and
retains its original doors, hardware, windows and shutters

Source: R.M. of Gimli By-laws No. 11-0022,
23 February 2012.

Character-Defining Elements

Key
elements that define the exterior heritage character of the Thorson Cottage include:
-the overall size
and massing, raised slightly off the ground and with a hipped roof
-the original brick central chimney
-the
painted wood exterior: vertical tongue-and-groove siding on the verandah, and clapboard on the balance
of the building, with cornerboards, skirting board and drip cap; exposed rafters in the eaves
-the fenestration,
with some screened openings and some multi-paned wood windows, set individually or in rows (in the verandah);
high, horizontal openings in the verandah; the simple wood window frames and interior shutters

Key elements
that define the interior heritage character of the Thorson Cottage include:
-the informal interior; the
fir floor and interior partitions of tongue and groove fir
-the general division of the interior space
into a main hearth room with small bedrooms and kitchen on the periphery and a large L-shaped verandah
wrapping around the east (front) and north sides.
-the chimney, which originally connected to stoves
in both the kitchen and hearth room.
-the original fittings including the doors and hardware
-the pattern
of the original interior wood shutters, and their hardware; the mechanisms for opening and fastening
the hinged windows

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Thorson Cottage site include:
-the
verdant quality of the corner lot, with large trees