The house has been the long-time home of Roy P. MacLean, the publisher and editor of the Kelowna Courier newspaper for thirty-eight years, from 1938 to 1976, and an extremely influential opinion-maker in the community. Roy P. MacLean and his wife Evelyn came to Kelowna in 1938, when he purchased an interest in Kelowna Courier Ltd. He succeeded George C. Rose, who had served as publisher and editor of the Kelowna Courier since 1905. During his time at the helm, MacLean took the paper from a weekly publication to bi-weekly in 1946, and then (after the paper was sold to the Thompson Newspaper chain in 1956, but with MacLean retained as editor and publisher) to daily publication in 1957.

This substantial house was built for MacLean in 1942 by A.L. Patterson, a well-known local builder who seems to have built most of the houses in this Maple Street subdivision, which was established around 1935 in the filled-in oxbow of Mill Creek. This late example of the Georgian Revival Style illustrates the transition from period revivals to modernist design, as Canadian and American architects reacted to European modernism.