Description of Historic Place

R.J. Haney Heritage House is a prominent two storey building located on a farm acreage preserved within the Agricultural Land Reserve in the northeast quadrant of Salmon Arm, British Columbia. The house is easily identified by its landmark position at the end of the entrance to R.J. Haney Heritage Village. The historic place includes the house and adjacent gardens and grounds.

Heritage Value

The house was originally constructed in 1908 and rebuilt in 1910 by R.J. Haney after it was destroyed in a fire. R.J. Haney Heritage House is valued for its historical, aesthetic and cultural importance, particularly through its association with Robert James Haney, a prominent local farmer and money lender in the early days of Salmon Arm's development.

The house is valued for its location next to the road to the nearby community of Enderby. Constructed in 1896, local farmers voluntarily built the road in order to gain access to the Columbia Flouring Mills in Enderby. Mr. Haney and other farmers in Salmon Arm grew wheat and needed access to the neighbouring community. Remnants of the road bed can be found on R.J. Haney's property along Canoe Creek.

Exhibiting a hybrid architectural style, the house takes its cue from the Arts and Crafts architectural movement. The Arts and Crafts inspired form and detailing including its horizontal massing, gable roof, knee braces, covered verandah and shingle cladding, and has not changed architecturally since its construction. The site's natural landscape features and sympathetically designed gardens planted in 2001 serve to buffer the house from the R.J. Haney Heritage Village development, isolating and visually protecting the structure.

R.J. Haney Heritage House is valued by the community for its location within R.J. Haney Heritage Village, a forty acre parcel owned by the City of Salmon Arm and treasured as a community park. Social value is found in the house's connection to a time when mixed farming was a profitable venture in the community. The house also has value as the community's first municipally designated heritage home, having been declared a Municipal Heritage Site in 1991.

Source: City Hall, City of Salmon Arm

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of R.J. Haney Heritage House include its:

Site:

- Located parallel to Canoe Creek
- Remnants of the original Salmon Arm-Enderby road bed
- Generous yard, open space, and heritage gardens surrounding the building
- Mature plantings bordering the site
- Views of neighbouring agricultural fields and the Trans Canada Highway

Building:

- Front door facing the highway
- Above grade relationship to surrounding gardens
- Horizontal, square massing
- Wood frame and concrete foundation
- Shake clad, gable roof
- Original wood knee braces supporting gable end eaves
- Shingle exterior cladding
- Front and back verandahs on the main floor
- Screened sleeping porch on the second floor at the rear of the house
- Original proportioning of exterior surfaces and window openings
- Original wooden frame sash windows in a variety of configurations
- Original wood mouldings and trim
- Leaded glass bay window associated with interior staircase
- Original and replicated interior stained glass windows