Lower Town (Summerland Waterfront).

How Lower Town (Summerland Waterfront) took shape

Lower Town is Summerland's original 1902 townsite on the Okanagan Lake shore, where Shaughnessy Avenue, now Lakeshore Drive, held the first hotel, stores and a CPR fruit wharf. A 1922 fire pushed business uphill, and today it is a quiet lakeside strip of beaches, lakefront homes, a historic trout hatchery and a resort.

Before the townsite, this strip of beach below the silt bluffs was part of George Barclay's ranch, on syilx territory. M. Robinson laid out the new town beside the steamboat landing. Shaughnessy Avenue, today's Lakeshore Drive, soon held the Summerland Hotel, Empire Hall, the Summerland Supply Company, a telephone office, the post office and a real estate office. By 1909 Summerland's provincial assessment was the highest in the Okanagan Valley. In June 1910 the Canadian Pacific Railway built a wharf here with a freight shed, cold storage and a slip for rail cars carried by boat, with a packing house nearby. Fruit shipped from Lower Town until 1973, and the wharf was pulled down in April 1974. A community wharf opened on July 1, 1999.

The commercial era ended in smoke. On March 13, 1922 a basement stove fire in Simpson and Gowan's store spread through the business block, taking the post office and the Summerland Review office with it. Merchants rebuilt up the hill in West Summerland, and the old hotel burned in 1925. The 1907 Hogg Store is the last commercial building from those years. The water kept Lower Town alive. C. Today Lakeshore Drive links Peach Orchard Beach, Rotary Beach and Crescent Beach, with lakefront houses, hillside view homes and resort condos in between, and a lakeside path rebuilt after the 2017 and 2018 floods.

1. 1910The CPR builds a freight wharf with cold storage and a rail car slip in June. Source
2. 1922A fire on March 13 destroys much of Lower Town's business block. Source
3. 1974The CPR wharf, closed in 1973, is demolished in April. Source

The homes & their setting

A mix of older lake cottages, lakefront homes, hillside lake view homes and resort style condos. The 2026 OCP lists Lower Town as an established neighbourhood on District sewer, where incremental, small scale multi unit infill is supported.

Building age, tenure, amenities and permitted uses vary by address. Explore the actual property documents with Elaine and the appropriate specialists.

Places with a story

• Hogg Store — Built in 1907, listed as the only remaining commercial building from Lower Town's heyday. History source
• Summerland Trout Hatchery — Fish culture began here in 1918; it is described as B.C.'s oldest continuously running trout hatchery, with its current building from the late 1940s. History source