306 Silica Street
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
The building at 306 Silica Street is a prominent 2 1/2 storey house with a generous verandah on the north and east facades. The house is located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Silica and Kootenay Streets in the lower Uphill neighbourhood of Nelson, B.C.
HERITAGE VALUE
This house, built in 1897 for Nelson’s third mayor Frank Fletcher (1901 and 1902), is important for its aesthetic and cultural values, and for its association with Fletcher and another mayor, Norman Stibbs, who resided in the house from the 1930s until his death on December 17, 1972.
The late Victorian house is of historical and aesthetic interest for exhibiting the expected details of this era (stone foundations, dentils over the bay windows, and gable-end detailing) but also an overall simple form and restrained trim detailing that anticipates the Edwardian architecture of the 20th century. The grounds are important for containing ‘Coronation’ apple trees (the cultivar was so-named in 1902 to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII), presented to Mayor Stibbs in London by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Built by Fletcher four years before he was elected mayor, the house and grounds show that care was taken to consolidate land to create the largest residential property in the Uphill area, to impress visitors with extensive gardens and a lawn tennis court (in the northwest corner of the property), and to generally provide a place of prestige for entertaining.
The house has value for being a good example of voluntary house conservation work carried out by the homeowners of Nelson’s Uphill neighbourhood since the 1970s.
From the City of Nelson Heritage Register, Page 30