A wedding is held outside the mansion at Historic O'Keefe Ranch.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/National Trust Canada

The centrepiece of Vernon's Historic O'Keefe Ranch will have its lifespan extended with an influx of cash.

The tourist destination has been under financial pressure and needed major repairs to keep operations going, but $50,000 from a national charity is the boost it needed to keep the O'Keefe mansion on the property standing.

With more than 27,000 votes, it won out against 11 other historic Canadian properties in a competitive effort for funding from the National Trust for Canada charity.

"You saved us," reads an O'Keefe Ranch social media post, thanking people who voted.

The charity's Next Great Save prize is meant to bring the mansion "to a reasonable state of repair," according to its website.

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"The mansion is the gathering place to relate stories of the historical arrival of colonists but also of the Syilx people helping the newcomers to survive in the Okanagan. With funding from the Next Great Save we can continue to educate visitors about our history in the context of Canadian society since 1867," the website read.

Settling the land four years before British Columbia joined Canada, second-generation Irish immigrant Cornelius O'Keefe's ranch became the site of the Okanagan Valley's first post office and general store, as described in a recent book about the property.

It became a tourist destination 100 years later, and by 1970s it came under City of Vernon ownership and leased to the Historic O'Keefe Ranch Society. With the lease set to expire in 2027 and no guarantee from the city that it will be renewed, the property needs millions of dollars in repairs.

More recently, Okanagan Indian Band began making moves to buy the ranch property, but how far along the land deal has progressed or how much it would pay isn't clear.

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The society's plans to repair the mansion, the centrepiece of the property, would make the former home more functional to host more educational and cultural programs, according to a description on the National Trust for Canada website.

"The joining of two cultures will bring additional visitors to the ranch and provide them with insight into European pioneering in the Okanagan in conjunction with the Syilx people. Our goal is bring new perspectives and understanding to cultural issues such as reconciliation," the website read.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Levi Landry or call 250-819-3723 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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