The Joyce Hostel
Place Description
This historic place is the large 2 1/2 storey wood-frame residence with Tudor Revival details known as the Joyce Hostel located at 455 Park Avenue in the South Central Neighbourhood of Kelowna, British Columbia. The site lies within the Abbott Street Heritage Conservation Area.
Heritage Value
Built between 1905 and 1909, the Joyce Hostel is significant for its evolving architectural vernacular style with Tudor detailing, its associations with the British Women’s Emigration Association (BWEA) and early immigration to Kelowna, and as an example of successful community heritage rehabilitation.
The Joyce Hostel has aesthetic value as a good example of the Tudor Revival style, with details including the truncated gable ends with half-timbered detail and the rock dash stucco (masonry) siding. The two front gables were added to the house in the 1940s. They reflect the house's evolution to serve new uses.
The Joyce Hostel was built for the British Women’s Emigration Association (BWEA) and named in honour of The Hon. Mrs. Ellen Joyce, who was the president of the BWEA from 1901 until 1919. This organization encouraged and assisted educated young women to emigrate to Canada. Though it was not officially endorsed by the organization, it seems that many of these women also came to Canada from Britain from 1913 through the early 1920s with the expectation of finding husbands. Many of them apparently did so and became some of the early families in Kelowna.
The BWEA sold the house to Doryan Contracting (George Dore and Howard Ryan) in 1943 and it was then renovated into a Tudor style duplex. The conversion of the building to a duplex in 1944 tells us about the process of urban development and the changing urban landscape in Kelowna, in that it reflects both the wartime housing shortage and the decline of the area in favour of more outlying neighbourhoods, as many large houses in this area were converted to rooming houses and apartments at that time.
The place is also valued as a good example of recent heritage rehabilitation. Purchased in 1998, the building was rehabilitated and converted back into a single family home from a duplex in 2000. The owners received the Central Okanagan Heritage Society award for the Restoration of a Building Currently in Residential Use in 2001. Since then, the house has been operating as the Joyce House Bed and Breakfast.
The historic place is further valued for its mature landscaping within the Abbott Street Heritage Conservation Area.
Character Defining Elements
The heritage value of the Joyce Hostel resides in the following character-defining elements:
- Location on the corner of Park Avenue and Doryan Street with large mature spruce trees on west side
- Residential form, scale and massing as expressed by its two and one-half storey height
- Rock dash stucco siding with half-timbered detail under north gable end
- Medium to steep pitched roof with truncated gable ends with overhang return
- Two original small east gable dormers in between two upper floor large dormer additions (south east and north east ends), one original small west gable dormer, centrally located
- Large veranda on front and newer verandah addition on east side of the house
- Wood sash double-hung windows
- Foundation wall, constructed of local concrete block fabricated by Haug, (split face block)
