introducing the Sign of the Pineapple

It occurs to me that it would be fun to do a bit of a profile on my House of the Week. Last week when I started the feature I posted a photo of a wonderful house on Highway 2 in Belleville- I still have to do the research to be able to tell its story. But, the wonderful Sign of the Pineapple building at 16 Queen Street in Niagara on the Lake is well-documented. I have several books discussing this lovely place which dates from around 1830. Peter Stokes in his 1971 publication Old Niagara on the Lake was circumspect in his description of this timber framed commercial building's preservation. I am really unsure, after reading his description dozens of times, if he completely approves of the building's late Regency style preservation which replaced the original small-paned shop-front, and the conversion of the top floor storage loft with its centre door originally outfitted with a crane beam and hook . Katherine Ashenburg was less coy - she states that "the graceful Gothic revival glazing is a 1970's reproduction". Stokes does note with approval the amethyst grey cast of the front windows. Whatever its story, I think this building is a beauty - cute!!

Thinking Mortar

Mortar...I'm thinking about mortar. It's inevitable - I'm doing some research and writing about cobblestone houses (detail at right is of one of the Belleville area's exquisite examples) in preparation for a wee article, and I am obsessing about the composition of the soft lime mortar that would make a pile of fist-sized rocks into a home that would last almost 200 years - it's all about sticking, folks. Today I ordered what looks to be an amazing book on the cobblestone buildings of western New York state (cousins of our Quinte and Paris Ontario cobblestone houses).The book, Cobblestone Quest by Rich and Sue Freeman, includes detailed car and bike trips of the area around Syracuse where 75% of the cobblestone buildings in that country are centred. Hmmm, road-trip?

Also studying the building materials section of T. McIlwraith's excellent book Looking for Old Ontario - tossing around delicious terms like post and beam, nogging, common bond and shale foundation blocks, with increasing understanding ...celebrating the resourcefulness and skill of our ancestors, and the enduring beauty they created.

Homage to Joni

I am doing a lot of thinking about what appear to be very different levels of will within communities to designate and preserve old buildings. I think I will put together an article on the topic, but 'til I get a chance for more in-depth research, here are some thoughts...

1. thinking about how emotional the response is when an old building is demolished (ref. Methodist church in Picton this summer) - I call it the 'don't know what you've got 'til it's gone' effect.

2. thinking about the article I read in CountyLive yesterday by Theresa Durning... wish I'd known about Cruikshank's visit -sounds like the event may lead to more active/proactive planning in Picton.

3. wondering how successful heritage activity gets going eg. thinking of Lunenburg's 1995 UNESCO World Heritage district designation, and how historic preservation planning has been taking place there since before 1978. Also, got a brochure about Heritage Oshawa when we did their Doors Open tour this fall - laying out what appears to be a transparent and invitational designation process (compare that to the empty heritage designation committee pages on the Belleville City Hall website!)

4. need to sort the difference between LCAC's and Heritage Advisory committees - which work, where are they working well.

In closing, the beautifully proportioned Georgian frame house, with neo-classical pilasters and capitals is in Bath. Suggest you have a look soon, while you can. It has fallen on hard times.

Cool Man Cool

Now what do we have here? This house has intrigued me for years; I drove by it every day on my trips to and from work for 12 years. This is the kind of house I dreamed of as a teenager living in a perfectly respectable white frame Ontario farmhouse with its wide Gothic inspired Marysburgh gable. But this house is so California, so Sunset magazine, so cool. It asserts 'break with the past', modern and iconoclastic. Even the name we attach to the style is so hip - Contempo.

Some of the features that define Contempo are the low slope of the multi-level roofs - one accommodating an entry porch and garage overhang - the plate glass windows in a variety of shapes and levels with minimal surrounds , clerestory windows for privacy, plain doors without transoms or side-lights, the wide chimney signalling a massive fireplace in the centre of the living area, the 'pilotis' supporting the sloping garage overhang, the brick planter and landscaping with evergreens.

The split level design, no historicizing detail, little adornment, a combination of finishes - typical mid-century brick and siding- this house is in the Mid-Century Modern or Contempo style. And isn't it funny how old it looks? I love this style now - I can imagine what fun it would be to find period furnishings to complete the picture.

Think I'll go find my black turtle-neck and tights.

Cottage Life

The simple one-and-a-half storey house with hip roof is found everywhere in Ontario. The 'generic' name for this type of house is the Ontario Cottage. Author Marion Macrae describes the evolution of this form in her scholarly 1963 work The Ancestral Roof. A stylized version of the basic cottage, with wide verandahs, treillage and large windows or french doors took its place in our built heritage between 1830 and 1860 as the Regency Cottage. (By the way, for an amazing story of heritage preservation - a rescue - visit Shannon Kyle's website www.ontarioarchitecture.com, go to 'building styles' and check out 'Regency'. Shannon chronicles her adventures with dismantling a Regency gem. She's a preservation saint!! Follow this blog for more links to her rebuilding project in Consecon, Prince Edward County, or just Google her for an amazing story!

I photographed this lovely cottage yesterday, in a little old cul-de-sac neighbourhood west of the Moira in Belleville, an old industrial neighbourhood. Most of the houses are frame, and in pitiful condition, but with intriguing proportions suggesting their origins. This little beauty is in brick, with a rubble-stone kitchen tail with massive chimney and a delightfully crooked doorway at the back. There is a fine brick-work frieze under the eaves, which are supported with small brackets. The windows at the front are large and low - Regency pretensions? - with cut stone lintels and sills, while the side windows sport neat soldier lintels of brick. There is no porch of any kind. My, I would love to know this little house's history.

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1793 Lunenburg

It's not often in Canada that we can stand in front of a building that's 250 years old. This summer on a trip to Quebec City and Lunenburg Nova Scotia, we got several opportunities to do just that.

This worthy structure is the Knaut-Rhuland House in Lunenburg. It was designated a National Historic Site by HSMB (Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada) and is one of the best-preserved c18 houses in Canada. Isn't that cool? That makes it one of the very special buildings in an old town that is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its wonderfully preserved townscape.

The house was built around 1793 (!) and is considered a fine early example of British classicism, which is the formal refined architectural style based on ideas from classical Greece and Rome - those being harmony and proportion. We commonly know the style as Georgian - more elaborate later versions are called neoclassical. Georgian features include the small sash windows - of course, glass was a rare commodity and panes were necessarily small -the symmetrical five-bay front, the doorway with sidelights, transom and entablature above, the chimneys and steep gable roof. Of course, the house has touches of the local fine craftsmanship in wood - such as the brackets in the Lunenburg style at the upper corners. The house is refined by the placement of planks at the corners, between ground floor and basement, and at the eaves. You see this type of detailing later on in neoclassical styles - the flat planks become fluted to recall pillars and topped with capitals of one of the Greek orders. But in this case, the wood is unornamented, plain, and reserved.

I understand the interior is amazing - a centre-hall plan, refined wood detailing, high quality carpentry.

I did not spend long enough in Lunenburg - but then again, I'm not sure how long it would have taken...

Lunenburg

I have been struck dumb...a late August trip around many heritage areas on the East Coast culminated in a day's walking tour around the UNESCO World Heritage designated old town of Lunenburg Nova Scotia, founded in 1753 - a heritage nut's idea of heaven. I have been revelling in my photographs and in lots of research and reading, and am only now beginning to process the amazing experience.

Lunenburg is one of the best preserved c19 streetscapes in all of North America. Walking Lunenburg's streets streets is like walking back in history. It feels British, it feels New England - not surprising given the influences on its growth. Serene Georgian symmetry, pragmatic Cape Cod cottages

exhuberant Victorian look-at-me's - all with that touch of the sea and ships. The shipbuilders and owners whose business was the sea all came home sometimes - to build families, businesses, communities and homes reflecting their status and skill. And somehow, somebody managed to preserve it!