Description of Historic Place

The Samuel E. Reid House is a large, asymmetric, two-storey rectangular house of High (Late) Victorian style with two ells, built in Tryon, Prince Edward Island, in 1901. It is strongly believed to have been constructed based on a design by the noted Canadian architect William Critchlow Harris.

Heritage Value

The Samuel E. Reid House is valued for its overall excellent exterior condition, its ornate architectural detailing, its importance to the community of Tryon in terms of its association with the Reid family and to the woollen industry, and for its possible connection to William Critchlow Harris.

This stately High Victorian double-ell house was built for Samuel E. Reid (1854-1924) and Melvina Lea (1852-1942) and their family in 1901, more than likely based on a design by the renowned Canadian architect William Critchlow Harris. Although it escaped formal identification by Robert Tuck, widely recognized as an authority on the work of Harris, architectural evidence strongly suggests that it was built on his design. Harris, who spent much of his childhood in Prince Edward Island, was sought after for his ecclesiastical and domestic designs and many examples of his work covering the late 19th and early 20th centuries can be found across the province and around the Maritimes.

Although Reid enjoyed success as a Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly (4th Prince) in the late 1890s and early 1900s, becoming Speaker of the House, Provincial Secretary, Treasurer, and Commissioner of Agriculture, he is best remembered for his entrepreneurial accomplishments, chief among them his forty-year association with the the Tryon Woollen Mills, a venture initiated by Charles Stanfield, progenitor of the famous Stanfield Empire, and which ultimately ended with a fire in March 1920. Additionally, Reid was a farmer and Justice of the Peace, and was instrumental in the formation of the Tryon Dairying Company. Following Reid's death in 1924, his daughter Helen and her husband, John Patterson, took over the house. After a decade of farming in Tryon, they relocated to the United States, selling the property to Victor Howatt. In 1939, he was forced to sell the house after a failed investment in poultry farming, this time to Heath and Elsie (Stordy) Howatt who were shortly after joined by their son Sheldon and his wife Marion. Eventually, Sheldon Howatt sold the house, along with 1.83 acres of the surrounding farmland, to George Stanwick. The house is currently in the possession of the Saunders family.

The house has survived largely unaltered since it was built. A window on the second storey of the east elevation was removed by previous owners and replaced by the current owners circa 2010, during which time new inserts were installed into the original window openings. At some point, a door leading to the mudroom on the east elevation was removed.

The significance of the Samuel E. Reid House lies primarily in its connection to Reid himself, politically prominent and entrepreneurially successful, and through him to the origins of the famous Stanfield Empire. From an architectural standpoint, the house holds great importance for its probable connection to William Critchlow Harris, noted Canadian architect of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and best remembered for his ornate ecclesiastical and domestic designs; if true, it would also represent a rare example of Harris' domestic work within a rural setting. More broadly, the house is considered to be in a class of its own, especially with respect to demonstrating the transition from Queen Anne influence to a more modern 20th century look.

Source : Heritage Places files, Dept of Fisheries, Tourism, Sport & Culture, Charlottetown, PE
File #: 4310-20/R8

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the house is shown in the following character-defining elements:

- the overall excellent condition of the exterior
- the positioning of the house on its original footprint
- the overall massing of the house
- the original window openings
- the drip moulding at the cellar line
- the slim corner boards
- the wide fascia under medium, wood-lined eaves
- the louvred vents at attic level in the Gothic arch
- the modified Dutch gable above the attic window
- the two-storey open porch on the south elevation
- the angled grille-work in the arch over the porch entry
- the five-sided roof over the upper balcony of the open porch, with pedimented cap
- the medallion trim applied beneath the second storey balusters
- the wide variety of wood cladding
- the three-leaf clover detail repeated in pedimented caps in the Dutch gables, and in the incised gingerbread trim on the front verandah
- the unusual saltbox shape of the north elevation
- the Dutch dormer with modified cap and board and batten cladding above the summer kitchen
- the open veranda on the west elevation with original grille-work
- the supporting posts of the west elevation veranda with incised gingerbread trim and triple-petal motif
- the large truncated dormer with small, flat roof and cutaway sections, and knob trim at the bottom edge

Further contributing character-defining elements:

- the visual impact generated by size and positioning of the house with respect to the road
- the pairing of the house with a contemporary summer structure in the side yard