C.A. MacQuarrie House

This two-storey wood frame residence is located at 51 Queen Street in Truro, NS in the urban core of the town. It is an elaborated American Foursquare house, with its simple square plan, hipped roof with broad eaves, and symmetrical façade. The gabled entrance porch has turned supports and spindles, and the projecting central bay extends into a pedimented dormer with unusual side walls, clearly influenced by the Shingle style. The designation includes the building and surrounding property.

Historical Value

This house is valued for its association with C.A. MacQuarrie, a locally prominent pharmacist who moved to Truro from Pictou and established a drugstore on Prince Street in the 1920s. MacQuarrie’s business still exists, and has expanded province-wide under the guidance of his son and grandson.

The house is valued too for its association with James Little (1835-1905), a teacher at the Colchester County Academy and an amateur meteorologist, whose generous bequests are still benefiting students and local churches a century after his death.

Architectural Value

The house is also valued as an excellent example of the American Foursquare style of architecture. Its layered “wedding cake” façade and unusual dormer have made the house a local landmark.

Source: Planning Department, Town of Truro, file 10MNS0024

Elements that define the building’s external heritage character include:

- basic American Foursquare form and massing;

- hip roofed entrance porch with turned supports and spindle railings, and an intersecting gable front with textured shingles;

- angled central bay over the porch stepped upward and back into a pedimented gable dormer, with Shingle style textured walls supporting the eave overflights on the dormer;

- narrow double-sashed windows with wide corbelled mouldings and matching door surrounds;

- wooden cladding, with trim elements painted in a contrasting colour.