Tupper House

Description of Historic Place

The Tupper House features a one-and-three-quarter-storey dwelling located in the neighbourhood of Nutana.  Built in 1909, the home is one of the earliest dwellings completed on the block, and is situated just off Broadway Avenue directly adjacent to another Municipal Heritage Property – the Arrand Block.

This historic place, located at 518 11th Street East, was designated as a Municipal Heritage Property in 2016. 

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Tupper House lies in its architectural style.  The home is an excellent example of eclectic, late Victorian styling, with Queen Anne influences.  The home features an asymmetrical plan with a hipped roof and front-facing gable.  Ornamentation is simplistic in some areas of the home (i.e. the basic moldings, window frames, and lintels), while being more detailed in other areas, such as the front door with its Victorian “twist” doorbell and its stained glass and piano window.  Although changes to the home have been made over the years, many of the original elements of the home - including the wood siding, porch and platform, and most of the windows and their frames – remain.

Past residents of the Tupper House include George Tupper, who was a resident of the home from 1909 to 1913.  Born in Nova Scotia, in 1872, Tupper was a prominent real estate agent, blacksmith, and operator of the ferry on the South Saskatchewan River.  In 1911, he established Tupper Brothers - a real estate, loans, insurance, and financial broker.  William B. Doyle was a resident at 518 11th Street East from 1917 to 1926.  Doyle was a public school trustee for 20 years and chairman of the school board between 1921 and 1940.  In 1941, J. Edward Hogan, a farmer working at the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Authority (PFRA), and later as a caretaker for Saskatoon Separate Schools, moved into the home.  Hogan's extended family lived in the home for nearly half a century.

The Tupper House continues to be a visual reminder of Saskatoon’s early years, and contributes strongly to its surrounding streetscape.

Source:  City of Saskatoon Built Heritage Database

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements which contribute to the heritage value of this historic resource include:

• Its eclectic, late Victorian architecture, with Queen Anne influences, evident in its clapboard wood exterior, asymmetrical form, hipped roof with front-facing gable, windows, trim, moldings, lintels, and front door with decorative accents; and
• Those elements that contribute to the 11th Street East streetscape, including its massing, scale, front porch, and original location