Sutherland Store

The Sutherland Building has value for its association with community leader D.W. Sutherland, for having accommodated a range of commercial and cultural activities in early Kelowna, and as a high quality example of the simplified Victorian Italianate style.

The building is significant for having been developed by Daniel Wilbur Sutherland, a major figure in social, economic, and political activities in the early Kelowna. Sutherland came to Kelowna from Nova Scotia in 1893, as a teacher in the first school in the townsite, which was held upstairs in the first Lequime store. He also held the position of Justice of the Peace, and sold real estate and insurance. He gave up teaching and by 1905 he, along with a Mr. Hepburn, had taken over Alex Gammie's furniture store (the first in Kelowna, started in 1899). Renamed the Kelowna Furniture Company, the business moved to this new building, sharing the ground floor with Trench's Drugstore (until it moved to the Raymer Block in 1916).

Sutherland was highly involved in civic affairs. He was elected to City Council on Kelowna's incorporation in 1905, and was alderman or mayor every year except one until 1929. He ran unsuccessfully as a Liberal for both provincial and federal seats. He was also provincial Grand Master of the Masons in 1926. Sutherland Street and Sutherland Park, at the base of Knox Mountain, are named for him.

The building also has value for having accommodated a wide range of commercial and cultural activities in the early years of the newly incorporated city. The Orange and Odd Fellows' Halls were on the second floor in the building's early years. About 1912 Mackenzie's General Store replaced the Kelowna Furniture Company as the major retail occupant and remained here until the 1950s. In 1948 part of the building was occupied by the Kelowna 5? to $1 Store (O.C. Shirrett, president); by 1956 the variety store occupied the whole ground floor. It became Stedman's 5? to $1 and operated until about 1970. The building is now occupied by Picture Perfect (339) and Perpetual Blooms (347).

The building has value as well for its architecture, and for being representative of the second period of intensive development in Kelowna's Downtown core. Constructed by Emslie and Miller in 1907, it is built of rusticated concrete blocks, an early use of that material. The arched windows of the second floor represent a simplified version of the Victorian Italianate style.