Description of Historic Place

The Turnock/Morse Residence is a one and one-half storey, wood-frame Cape Cod cottage located at the northeast corner of St. Anne Avenue and 223 Street, in the historic Port Haney neighbourhood of Maple Ridge, B.C. Built in 1938, the house reflects the picturesque traditions and vernacular revivals popular in domestic architecture at the time, and features side-gabled roofs with clipped eaves, shingle siding, multi-paned windows and unique inset shutter vents.

Heritage Value

The Turnock/Morse Residence has aesthetic value as a picturesque example of a Cape Cod cottage, a style that became increasingly popular in the two decades that followed the end of World War One. The use of various Colonial Revival styles had gained new popularity at the time of the American Sesquicentennial in 1926, when patriotism was at a fever pitch and architectural fashion favoured the use of traditional, Colonial models that reflected the modern ideals of economy and good design. It was presumed at the time that a well-built house would display a traditional and readily-identifiable style as a hallmark of good taste. The austere economics of the time dictated that houses were generally modest in scale, and reflected the reality of families having to make do without domestic help. The Colonial Revival style- including this variation known as the Cape Cod cottage- experienced a further surge in popularity during the 1930s, when both the Colonial Revival and the Depression combined to create a desire for small, economical, yet old-fashioned houses. Family houses often assumed a cottage appearance that provided a romantic ideal of traditional domesticity, hearkening back to the values and ideals of an earlier age and evoking feelings of pleasant and comfortable nostalgia. The Cape Cod cottage received national publicity through numerous pattern books, which were widely used by many homeowners as the basis for their residential construction.

The Turnock/Morse Residence has historic and social value for its association with the late 1930s development of the Port Haney neighbourhood of Maple Ridge. The early settlement of Port Haney was centred on the Fraser River, which provided the earliest mode of transportation prior to the development of roads through the area. After the arrival of the CPR, significant commercial and residential development occurred and Port Haney became a major historic transportation hub in the region. In 1931, the completion of the Lougheed Highway- a Depression-era make-work project that connected the Fraser Valley communities by road-signalled a shift in the location of Haney's commercial activity. A devastating fire in 1932 destroyed much of the existing business centre, hastening the shift of businesses up the hill. This marked the end of the dominance of the railway industry and the emergence of road-based transportation that allowed greater flexibility in land development and heralded new development throughout the Fraser Valley. The old townsite was therefore less desirable for commercial purposes, opening up residential opportunities in the Port Haney area.

SOURCE: Maple Ridge Planning Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Turnock/Morse Residence include its:
- location at the northeast corner of St. Anne Avenue and 223rd Street in the historic Port Haney neighbourhood of Maple Ridge
- continuous residential use
- residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its one and one-half storey height, sidegabled roofline, rectangular plan with projecting setback wing to the east, and offset front entry
- Period Revival, Cape Cod design features such as: clipped eaves; wide, random-width, cedar shingle siding with wide exposure to the weather; simple wooden trim; front and rear shedroofed dormers; central red brick chimney; multi-paned wooden-sash windows including single and double fixed and double-hung assemblies; and inset shutter vents beside the fixed windows