My Spiritual Home - found it yesterday

Yesterday I was introduced to a home perfect in all ways - an early house, set in sloping lawns under the largest and most elegant black locust trees I've ever seen, with the water of the Bay of Quinte lapping at its feet, and one of the few unchanged sections of the original Danforth Road running outside the front door.

the view over the Reach

A history portal...as I walked along the shady gravel, with lush fence-lines on either side, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Tingles. Old souls here.

a side entrance to the tall stone basement

 Although the house needs some work, a building inspection reportedly found the windows as square as the day they were installed.The doorcase, with its half-sidelights, suggests a very early house indeed.

somebody cared to rebuild good chimneys

 The friend who showed me the place says that it may be coming on the market soon. It will need that special buyer...and God forbid, not someone who will raze this piece of early Loyalist history (it is said to be the town lot selected by the surveyor who laid out the Loyalist lots pre-1784) to build a monster home.

black locust majesty

the Danforth Road at my doorstep

Could this be your home?

Industrial hind-sight

One of the strong messages I took away from our visits to Perth and to the early 1900's Silver Queen mica mine in Murphy's Point PP, is how lovely these industrial sites are today and what a contrast that offers to the reality of their industrial past. The mine, which was a dangerous and dirty open pit in the first decade of the 1900's, surrounded by mountains of broken rock and a landscape denuded of all trees is now upholstered with ferns and mosses, a young forest taking over the meadows around it.

interpretive signage at Silver Queen Mica mine

I was particularly struck by that then-and-now feeling as we strolled through the utterly lovely Stewart Park, catching glimpses of the Code Felt Mill (now home to a restaurant whose outdoor patio we enjoyed, and an interesting interior filled with shops we wisely avoided).



The mill was built in five stages, beginning in 1842. , I'm guessing it was once a good deal noisier, and dirtier and more dangerous that it looks today, reflected in the waters of the Tay River.

The open area which forms part of the park was once a drying field for the felt produced in the factory.

Kininvie - industrialist T.A.Code's 1906 home

the wing at left dates to 1842

 This lovely park was gifted to the city in 1947 by the widow of the Honourable John Alexander Stewart, lawyer and president of several local firms, Minister of Railways in the Meighen Cabinet. Along with the bequest was an endowment for its maintenance, and the condition that this lovely spot not be changed or used commercially.







There is a grand statue to Big Ben, that legendary world-champion show jumper and his rider Ian Millar in the park.

You look good in purple

purple stripes with matching awnings

I knew there was something unique about the stone walls in Perth. So accustomed to Kingston to Port Hope limestone am I that I had to approach and touch it before the truth dawned. Sandstone....of course. Lots of ancient river bottom in the area.

The Welcome to the Heritage Perth Walking Tour guide picked up from a friendly and helpful young woman at the visitor centre in the kitchen tail behind Matheson House (another story there) throws around new words like "white Bathurst sandstone", "mottled Otty Lake freestone" "twenty-four inch sandstone" "locally quarried Potsdam sandstone" "reddish sandstone."




Ashenburg adds "dark sandstone" "oatmeal coloured sandstone" and, best yet, "Hughes quarry purply stone'.  And there are purple stripes, as this closeup of the substantial block at 44 Gore Street East shows.

44 Gore Street

A quick search yielded this terrific Fossils and Geology of Lanark County blog which emystifies the unique purple-banded (narrow lines to 10" thick) sandstone, often called Perth stone, that is featured in a number of c.19 buildings, and building accents, in Perth, with a few examples in Arnprior and Almonte.

purplish voussoirs, lintels, string courses and quoins
 on industrialsit T.A. Code's home Kininvie (1906)

The purple hue is likely iron staining, according to blogger Christopher Brett.

Because the purple  stone was easy to cut, it formed readily into decorative trims. But this sandstone wasn't just a pretty face, it could punch with the big ones. A 1912 report describes some very large blocks obtained in uniform breaks, using hammers and wedges only. One giant was 30 feet x 2 feet x 18" in size, but the report goes on to say that most of the good stone was already removed by that date.

"amethyst-toned voussoirs and stringcourses" dignify
Code's Felt Mill (1902 wing)

and a purply sandstone foundation too, but who would notice?

Blogger Chris recounds a visit to the Hughes Quarry in recent years. Funny, as we drove back and forth from town, we passed Hughes Road. Wonder if that was the route to the quarry which produced this wonderful purple-hued town?

Hope to check it out one day.

Throwing down the gauntlet

We escaped to the natural wonders of Murphy's Point Provincial Park last week. Bliss (about which I will refrain from rapturing on, as you came for the old house stories).

When one lives in the country (if only temporarily) there always seems to be a need to go to town. When the closest towns are those architectural treasures of Perth and Merrickville, the need would be even more pressing - and the guidebook to pack along would have to be Katherine Ashenburg's Going to Town.

I love the profiles Katherine writes of the communities she features in the book. I think she outdid herself in her description of Perth, which was established as a military settlement along the Rideau corridor in 1816, at a time when cross-border tensions were palpable, and the establishment of a community of strong loyal subjects in the wilderness seemed prudent. Enter Scottish emigrants (whose masonry talents would soon be called upon for the Rideau Canal start-up in 1826) and discharged half-pay officers with their education, their experience of the wider world, their pretensions to culture and their "hyper-competitive circle, which numbered public insults, duelling threats, and horse-whipping as normal pastimes."

Ashenburg describes "the masculine, honour-obsessed ethos" of the place, which fuelled a Perth tragedy, Canada's last duel, between two law students, in 1833.

Summit House (1823)

She cites Larry Turner (Perth:Tradition & Style in Eastern Ontario, Natural Heritage 1992) on the social differences of the town's three senior lawyers - James Boulton, Thomas Radenhurst and Daniel McMartin - and the way it manifested in their three very different houses. Seems to me to be a pretty good profile of the town in the day.

"All three are still among Perth's most prominent houses, and their styles mirror their owners' values almost uncannily; the owners in their turn are a microcosm of Upper Canada's elites. Boulton, a scion of the Family Compact Boultons, built a simplified version of their Toronto house, the Grange, which is itself a simplified version of an English Georgian house - ordered, refined, aristocratic."

The Grange (1817) Toronto

Proud twenty-two year old James Boulton built the town's first brick house on its highest hill. Ashenburg describes it as a simpler version of his brother D'Arcy's Grange, in Toronto. Just a bit more down at the heels, in the above photo from ontarioplaques.com.

But Ashenburg argues for "the same symmetrical five-bay two storey structure, with tall first floor windows and shorter ones above." (Palladian tradition) She continues: "the fanlight hidden by the portico and the rounded light in the gable are other familiar neoclassical touches,but unlike the Grange's projecting frontispiece,the Summit's is flat." Brick houses were uncommon in the area; the selection of brick was an imported Toronto pretension.

Daniel McMartin house, NHS (1830)

When Boulton's law clerk killed another lawyer's clerk in a duel, he fell from favour, and left Perth. He left his house behind to tell the story of pride and honour.

Ashenburg continues with an account of Daniel McMartin "a pugnacious country boy [who] harked back to his Loyalist New York State origins with a Federal style mansion, the most complex and preening house of the three."  It's an astonishing house, out of place in a small Ontario town. Its accent is Yankee - its arcades, mixing of brick and local marble, the massive double chimney stacks, the lanterns flanking a cupola, its sheer ostentation...not a very Canadian house, really.

'Inge-Va' was built for an Anglican rector, then owned by the third of our trio of Upper Canada lawyers, Thomas Radenhurst. It's  refined one and a half-storey Georgian style stone house with an elegant elliptical fanlight over the equally elegant door-case, 12 x12 sash and a front gable with a round-headed casement, added after 1833. The interior features five Adam-style mantelpieces.

'Inge-Va' - the Harris/Radenhurst/Inderwick house (1823)

The name wasn't added until the time of the third owner, Ella Inderwick whose son Cyril was one of the founders of ACO; his widow donated the house to Ontario Heritage Foundation. It means "come here", in Tamil. Though my Tamil is rusty, I will for sure be accepting the invitation on my next visit to Perth.

Mourning Melville

Melville Sask. in dryer days

Thinking about you Melville Saskatchewan. Remembering this hot dry day last August, when we made your acquaintance.

Stayed in your Municipal camp-ground on August 13, on our way across country from a provincial park in Manitoba to another at Fort Qu'Appelle Saskatchewan.


Next morning we had a wander around the welcoming town, the smallest official city in that province, "a delightful town with a rich c20 settlement and railway history" according to my log-book.

I remember a very invitational (and air-conditioned) library where we checked email, and lots of interesting buildings, including the 1912 Edwardian Classical town hall/opera house, and the 1906 train station, being restored by the proud little community.

Civic-minded little place. Calls itself 'the city of volunteers'. Unfortunately, the town website seems to have plenty of work for volunteers, just to keep things going during this assault by mother nature.

Edwardian Classical Post Office

1912 Town Hall/Opera House - seen in a bad light

a welcome break from the heat at the friendly library

history at the library

Nice little spot Melville. Wasn't hurting anybody.

Hate to see bad things happen to good towns. Thinking of you folks.

SOLD! Victory on Victoria

building scars - outline of summer kitchen visible 

I wrote about this house back in 2012.
At the time, it was listed for sale. The virtual tour, oddly. is still online as I post this. I say oddly, as within the last few weeks, this c1835/1860 limestone farmhouse has been sold.

This upright symmetrical hip-roofed structure started out as one and a half storey, and was expanded to its full two-storey height in the 1860's.

top storey out of line with slightly wonk main floor
signs of an addition to the early house?

The Settler's Dream shows a c.1875 photo of David Gibson's house, with a generous clapboard kitchen-woodshed tail on a tall limestone foundation extending to the east and a trellis verandah running across the front and east side to join with the frame summer kitchen. A fence of palings is rooted in rocks, with which the site is richly endowed. And there is are twin flued chimneys standing tall at each end wall.




The original trellis verandah with its awning shaped roof was removed in the 1950's, and one now stands on a crumbling cement deck to survey the fields below.

astonishingly the brackets persist, as do some 6x6 sash

the view from the porch - feel that breeze?

rubble at the base of the peculiar pink granite inlier
right behind the house

wild grape vines inhabit the portico

the old water pump, locust trees

Breaking my 'shoot from the kerb' rule just this once (for I am but a well-wisher) I peered in through the only accessible window, and was rewarded with a glimpse of the formal parlour with its finely crafted fireplace mantel, panelled doors, chair rail and baseboards.

The realtor's virtual tour (while it lasts) shows the parlour (above) with its Neoclassical mantel, and the room to the other side of the centre hall, with a mustard coloured Georgian mantel and a panel section covering a fireplace whose proportions hint at a cooking hearth and bake oven behind. Deep panelled reveals on the windows, dado panel below, slip rooms behind, panelled doors. Two stairways with simple railings.

And water damage. Modern improvements -wallpapers, fake wood panelling. And lots and lots of work.

This house needs so much - a knowledgeable owner, a heritage architect and/or an informed and skilled restoration contractor, and a generous allowance. I wish all that, and more for it. I would love one day to meet the owner who has undertaken this project.

And when I do, I will ask why the portico bears the name Mountain Grove. There is no other reference to the property having that name. And there is a second Mountain Grove in PEC.  And it has a restored portico roughly this shape. Could this be a hand-me-down?

Windows...the eyes to a house's soul

We all know how important windows are to the heritage character of old buildings. All too often we witness, and mourn, the replacement of old sash windows with vinyl replacements or plate glass.  Homeowners are often driven to these decisions by concerns about  energy efficiency - and poor advice.













But there is good advice about window preservation and restoration out there.























Shannon Kyles, my friend and History of Architecture prof at Mohawk College, is passionate about the necessity, the viability and the cost-effectiveness of restoring old windows.

Her Regency Rebuild story appeared widely. I did an article for County and Quinte Living in the Summer 2012 issue. Shannon cut her window restoration teeth on that project.



During the work, she developed a strong working relationship with like-minded window guy Drew Skuce. Over the winter Shannon worked with architect Ron Bean, Drew Skuce and Alan Stacey to create a YouTube video on solutions for old windows titled 'In Praise of Older Windows'.





The video compares the thermal efficiency of a 200 year old window with a storm window with a new vinyl window. Using infrared cameras the team collected data to refute the claims of new window proponents (and salepeople). Nine minutes of smart information to save a 100 year old window.








Shannon is a regular contributor to CBC's weekend morning program 'Fresh Air'. This Sunday (July 6) at 8:00 AM, she will be talking with host with Karen Gordon  about her project. Definitely worth a listen.

Shannon can be contracted to do these readings at your property, for a minimal charge, starting in September.

So it's settled? The eyes have it.