Formal Recognition Type

Municipal Heritage Building, Structure or Land

Heritage Value

Jenniex House has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Norris Point due to its historic, cultural and aesthetic value.

Jenniex House has historic value within Norris Point as one of the community’s oldest dwellings. It was built in 1926 in neighbouring Neddies Harbour by Augustus Major, whose family was amongst the first fifty settlers in the Norris Point area in the mid 1880s. When Augustus Major died, his wife Alma married Garfield Jenniex, and in the winter of 1938 the house was moved across the ice from Neddy Point with the assistance of horses, to what is now known as Jenniex Lane in Norris Point. Jenniex House has been relocated several times. Indeed, the moving of houses, sometimes whole towns, is a common tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Jenniex House has cultural value as it is currently operated by the Norris Point Heritage Committee as a tourist attraction and community museum with period artifacts. The Jenniex family donated the house to the Norris Point Heritage Committee in the late 1990s. The committee refurbished the dwelling and moved it to its current location, the Norris Point Lookout, with an impressive view of Bonne Bay and the Tablelands of Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Jenniex House has aesthetic value as an example of a 20th century vernacular dwelling in outport Newfoundland. Its key, intact features include its simple, rectangular, two-storey form; low-hipped roof; narrow clapboard siding; plain wooden trims and cornerboards; and original openings for doors and windows.

Source: Town of Norris Point, meeting of the Town Council held June 13, 2006

Character Defining Elements

All those extant exterior elements which are indicative of the building’s original function as a dwelling, its age and its corresponding vernacular style including:
-the form and dimensions of the building;
-the low-hipped roof;
-the narrow clapboard sheathing;
-plain wooden trims and corner boards;
-and the placement and dimensions of the doors and windows.

Community

Norris Point

Municipality

Town of Norris Point

Civic Address

The Lookout, 104 Main Road

Construction (circa)

1926 - 1926

Builder

Augustus Major

Style

Rectangular Long Façade