Description du lieu patrimonial

Knott House is a one and a half storey, wood-frame cottage located on the northeastern edge of its lot in the Queen's Park neighbourhood of New Westminster, BC.

Valeur patrimoniale

Knott House has heritage value for its aesthetic and historic significance, in particular for its age, its evolved architectural style and its association with local female artist, Emma Knott.

Built in 1912, this house is valued as a good example of a worker's style cottage house. Knott House is connected to the Edwardian-era building boom that took place in New Westminster in the early 20th century. This period saw substantial development in the Queen's Park neighbourhood, which resulted in additional amenities for the area with street paving, concrete sidewalks and a sewer system, which was introduced in the same year Knott House was built. Similar to other cottage style houses in New Westminster, Knott House, with its hipped-roof, centred dormers, bell-cast eaves and bay windows, is representative of a common design used for members of the working class. The local BC Mills, Timber and Trading Company supplied a prefabricated version of this design. Having been built for a single working woman, it is likely this was an economical design for her to have built by the local builder A.F. Gustafson.

The house is historically significant for its association with its first and longest resident was Emma Knott, who lived in the house until her death in 1934 at the age of 86. For the period it was built in, it was rare for a single woman to have a house built for herself. She appears to have been a fairly successful artist, exhibiting her work "Apples Corn and Berries" in Vancouver as early as 1909 with the BC Society of Fine Arts' debut First Annual Exhibition at the Dominion Hall, as well as at the Exhibition of Pictures held by the Vancouver Studio Club and School of Art. There was a range of other residents in the house over time, including a number of other women (identified as widows), as well as numerous working-class individuals (such as a longshoreman, a labourer, a penitentiary guard, etc.), further illustrating the working-class connection of Knott House.

The house has undergone alterations over the years, illustrating a change of tastes and needs of its occupants over time. The changes have been sensitive and respectful of the streetscape Knott House is situated in and, if anything, have added to its charm. Although still a simple cottage design, the alterations in 1990, added some decorative flare to the house, in particular changing the front stairs and adding the overhang with a decorated roofline to the front entryway, supported by turned posts. It is located in an area with a concentration of houses surviving from the early 20th century.

Éléments caractéristiques

Key elements that define the heritage character of Knott House include its:

- Location in the Queen's Park neighbourhood.
- Residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its one and a half storey height.
- Hipped roof with a subtle bell-cast flare to its eaves, featuring a centred dormer at both the front and back of the house.
- Front overhang with decorated roofline and porch posts, partly rounded and partly squared with simple decorative bands carved in the upper portions.
- Minimal decoration beyond the aforementioned roofline detailing and its porch posts.
- Use of wood as its dominant material, including the shingle siding featured on all sides.
- Red brick chimney in the centre of its roof.
- Remaining seven original wood windows (two on the front, one on the east elevation, one at the back and three on the west elevation), including those with horns.