Gurr House

The Gurr House at 815 Lawrence Avenue is a vernacular craftsman bungalow built in 1920. The property is within the residential North Central neighbourhood and is located between Richter Street and Ethel Street in Kelowna, B.C.

The Gurr House has social, aesthetic and historic value for its association with one of the community's prominent early citizens, for its architecture, and for its visual contribution to the historic Bernard-Lawrence neighbourhood of Kelowna.

The Gurr House has social and historic value for its close association with Charles James Gurr, who was a Policeman for over 40 years until his retirement in the late 1950s. In Kelowna, the British Columbian Provincial Police were under contract from the BC Government. The BCPP ceased to exist in 1950 when policing was taken over by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. James and his wife Mary Ellen came to Kelowna around 1935. They resided in this home at 815 Lawrence Avenue (then called Glenn Avenue). They lived there until their deaths in 1972.

This modest house has aesthetic value as a simplified vernacular craftsman bungalow style that is representative of the straight forward approach to builders' architecture at the time. This craftsman-style bungalow's details have been simplified from the prototype of the previous decade. The house is one of many different styles and sizes of family houses that adds to the streetscape of this historic area in Kelowna.

SOURCE: City of Kelowna, Policy and Planning Department

The elements that define the character of the Gurr House include its:

-Residential form, scale and massing, expressed by the one-storey height and rectangular plan

-Covered front porch spanning the width of the home

-Square columns with a porch knee wall

-Medium pitched front-gabled roof with small front attic window

-Craftsman style details such as shingle cladding, exposed rafter tails, exposed soffits, and large brackets under the eaves

-External red brick chimney