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Architectural Conservancy of Ontario – Port Hope Branch Newsletter – September 2013

President's Report

The theme of this year’s Heritage Conference, which was held this past June in Midland, was Rediscover the Past to Enhance the Future. One of the highlights for me was

the story of the SS Keewatin. The Keewatin is an Edwardian passenger steamship, 350 feet long and older than the Titanic. She used to sail the Great Lakes between Port McNicholl and Port Arthur. In the 1960s, the Keewatin was going to be sold for scrap but an American bought the ship and took her to Michigan. Recently, through a Foundation by the name of Friends of the Keewatin, it was brought home to Port Mc-Nicholl. The ship is now an excellent museum showing life on board through the decades of the 20th Century, and its pres-ence in the harbour is helping to revitalize the town. It is a fine example of ‘rediscovering the past to enhance the future’ and well worth a visit. At the conference we were also fortunate to hear David Crombie (former Mayor of Toronto) speak. He is a dynamic and passionate speaker. He emphasized the important relation-ship between natural heritage and the waterfront, highlighting the 25th Anniversary of the Toronto Waterfront. He even men-tioned the Ganaraska and “Float your Fanny down the Ganny”! His words made me reflect on the work which has been ac-complished for the preservation of heritage in Port Hope, and the work we still have to do. As we look back over the first 50 years of ACO Port Hope, we can be proud of the buildings we have helped to save. Now we look forward to the next 50 years and the challenges of continuing to preserve our heritage. In September, we begin the next project of our Down Town Task Force. The Orange Hall on John Street will have its front façade restored. ACO Port Hope is working together with the town and the building owners to help preserve this impor-tant Port Hope landmark. And there are other projects in the works for next spring. As I sat down to write this article, I heard the sad news that Peter Stokes had died. Peter was a champion for heritage and Port Hope owes him a great debt of gratitude. We will be recognizing his life-time work in a future issue. Our ACO Port Hope calendar continues to be busy! In July we were treated to a spectacular, sell-out Garden Tour with beautiful and diverse gardens around Canton. Many thanks to the Committee headed by Mary Shaw-Rimmington, for organizing this outstanding event. Our newly introduced Eve-nings with Friends continue to be well attended. The next one is September 7th, a Railway Walking Tour with Ted Rafuse, and another on October 17th features Tom Cruickshank talking about Old Ontario Houses. Please make sure you have the House Tour date of October 5th in your calendars. Tickets are already on sale.The Barbecue will have taken place by the time you read this but meantime I am eagerly looking forward to it and the plea-sure of meeting our Members at the Johnsons' wonderful home on the 8th August. ACO Port Hope continues to be a strong organization, and all because of the membership. Many thanks to each of you for being a member and thereby helping to preserve the heritage of our wonderful town. Respectfully submitted, Trish Doney

Downtown Task ForceThe Orange Hall

The Downtown Task Force of the ACO embarks on its second project this fall, to assist the owners of 50 John Street in restoring the front façade which

involves cleaning and repairing the brick and restoring the windows. The building many know as the Orange Hall is wonder-fully eccentric. The unique design was deliberate since it was originally built as the first YMCA in Port Hope in 1874. There was a large meeting hall in the rear for Christian lec-tures which some-times served as a gymnasium, but its prime function was as a Christian in-stitution, hence its design is distinct from its commer-cial neighbors. It has seen many owners, among them the Salvation Army and the Loyal Or-der of Orange, and is now an artist’s studio and gallery. We look forward to seeing this important Port Hope landmark restored to reveal its charmingly eccentric design elements. Phil Carter

Contents:Downtown Task Force: The Orange Hall .............148th Annual House Tour .......................................3Culture, Heritage, Landscape— Wesleyville Village Has It All .................................4Evenings “Different Courses for Iron Horses”:A Railway Walking Tour with Ted Rafuse .............6Evenings Tom Cruickshank on "Old Ontario Houses" ...........................................7Notice about Peter John Stokes .............................7ACO and Other Events ..........................................8

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ACO Matters September 2013

ACO Executive 2013

Executive Committee Trish Doney .......................... PresidentCharles Wickett .................... Vice PresidentSusan Carmichael ................. SecretaryDennis Hogarth .................... Treasurer

Directors Patsy Beeson Phil GoldsmithPeggy Bennett Sebastian HannaJudith Copeland Peter KedwellTom Cruickshank Jo Anne Mathew

Committee Chairs Joan Tooke ........................... AuctionPatsy Beeson ........................ Bus Tour & Newsletter Tom Cruickshank ................. Downtown Task ForceMary Shaw-Rimmington ..... Garden Tour Charles Wickett .................... Governance & House TourBlaise Gaetz ......................... House TourJo Anne Mathew .................. MediaPeggy Bennett ...................... MembershipPhil Goldsmith ..................... Pier Group LiaisonTom Cruickshank ................. Projects & Auction Ed Pamenter ......................... Property & HPH Rep.Judith Copeland ................... SocialSebastian Hanna ................... Website

The ACO was incorporated in 1933 for the preservation of the best examples of architecture in the province and for the preservation of its places of natural beauty.

w w w . p o r t h o p e f r i e n d s o f m u s i c . c a

TSO BRASS ENSEMBLE

Port Hope United ChurchSaturday December 14, 2013, 7:30 PM

TAFELMUSIK BAROQUE ORCHESTRA

Port Hope United ChurchFriday February 7, 2014, 7:30 PM

NEW ORFORD STRING QUARTET

Port Hope United ChurchSunday March 30, 2014, 3:00 PM

TERESA WALTERS, piano

Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, Port HopeSunday May 18, 2014, 3:00 PM

MADAWASKA QUARTET

Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, Port HopeSunday November 17, 2013, 3:00 PM

BACH TO THE FUTURE, jazz quartet

Port Hope United ChurchSaturday May 31, 2014, 7:30 PM

STARS OF TOMORROW, with Iain Scott

St. Peter’s Anglican Church, CobourgSaturday March 29, 2014, 3:00 PM

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The 48th Annual Port Hope House Tour will feature ten wonderful properties: cottages; mansions; modern condominiums in a heritage building, as well as the

Port Hope United Church. If you choose, you can design your own ‘walking tour’ and enjoy what will be a lovely autumn day. All of the prop-erties are located west of the river and are on, or very close to, the Walton-Ridout-Lakeshore Road corridor. The late Victorian frame home located at 61 Bramley Street North was built in stages with the earliest dating to 1861. Subsequent additions include a wing to the south, a verandah, and a tower, and the whole house has been very recently restored.

At 25 Baldwin Street you will find an Ontario cottage with a ‘regency’ flair that has been opened up inside to create a modern open plan with new kitchen suitable to today’s lifestyle.

The two condominium units (#203 and #403) lo-cated in The Pines at 72 Pine Street North (formerly a school), are each unique and demonstrate how heritage buildings which have outlived their original functions can be transformed to new uses while preserving the architectural integrity of the original structure.

Another late Victorian home – this time of brick and in the Italianate style – is located at 2 Hagerman Street, off Walton. The inte-rior detailing of this house is original and includes 8 foot high paneled doors and a unique curved stair.

Just a bit further west at 233 Walton Street you will find another regency cot-tage. This home is notable for its Greek Portico entrance vestibule flanked by elegant French casement windows. The symmetry continues

in the interior with a wide centre hall flanked by principal rooms. The current owners have taken full advantage of the features of this house. Penryn Homestead at 82 Victoria Street South, built in the early 1800s and with extensive modifica-tions and additions in 1890, exhibits features of the popular Neo Classical style. It contains a ball room with some unusual features made in compliance with the wishes of the owner, Commander Williams. There are several other interesting buildings on the property including a guesthouse which has recently been updated to provide a studio for the current owners.

345 Lakeshore Road is where you will find Dunain, built in 1857. The style of the original home is de-scribed as Loyalist Georgian and it has received later ad-ditions and embellishments, some in the Neo-Classical style. The conservatory to

the south and much of the house and gardens have benefited from the extremely ambitious restorations of the current owners. Across the road at 350 Lakeshore Road you will find the Brand Farmhouse, also built in 1857. This home is an example of a Victorian Gothic Revival Ontario Farmhouse but with grander proportions indicative of the Renaissance Revival or Picturesque style. Renovations at the rear of the house demonstrate how modern improve-ments can complement the original architecture. Port Hope United Church is located at 34 South Street and was built in 1875. This stately church, the largest in Port Hope, is a good example of the ecclesiastical archi-tecture of the time and is anchored by two towers, one 186' high and the other 100' high. Among its many interesting features are three stained glass windows in the central bay, best viewed from inside the Church. So we have a terrific slate of properties, and remember – the funds raised from the Tour support the work of the ACO in Port Hope. Tickets ($25) are available at select area merchants, by mail order, or by PayPal. Full particulars may be found on the ACO Port Hope website www.acoporthope.ca .

48th Annual House TourSaturday, October 5th, 10am – 4pm

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ACO Matters September 2013

KIRKPATICK’S SINCE 1881

Leather Shop

Specialists in Restoration, Repair and Reproduction of Heritage Leather Goods

and Manufacture of Quality Leather Products

FACTORY AND SHOWROOM 15 Cavan Street, Port Hope, ON L1A 3B5

905-885-1883 www.kpatricks.com

Fonts: Kirkpatrick’s Since 1881 Engravers Bold Leather Shop Lucida Calligraphy Bold Balance of Text Arial Bold

KIRKPATRICK'S

Culture… Heritage… Landscape… Wesleyville Village Has It All

One of Port Hope’s early rural

settlements is be-ing revitalized by the Friends of Wesleyville Village (FOWV), winners of the 2012 Architec-tural Conservancy of Ontario A.K. Sculthorpe Award for Advocacy. The award recognized the Friends for their innovative approach to working with Wesleyville's owners, and their success in rallying the community. At the awards dinner, Kathryn McHolm, FOWV Chair, said, “The "Friends" and the community thank you for this heritage advocacy award, but we especially want to thank A.K. Sculthorpe for her inspiration. In the late 1960s A.K. convinced Ontario Hydro to set aside the Redlea beach area of their generating station property for natural heritage re-generation. Then she sought and received Hydro funding to fix the Church roof and continued to advocate for the envi-ronment and the preservation of the Church and remaining village buildings. “Designation of the Church by our Hope Town-ship LACAC was a watershed and led to the Wesleyville Study—commissioned by LACAC with financial support from ACO Port Hope and OPG. The study led to the forma-tion of the Friends. In all our work over the past three years A.K. has been with us—sitting on our shoulders as a friend, mentor and cheerleader.” The 2004 Wesleyville Village Study determined that what remained of the Village—its church, a schoolhouse,

two architecturally significant houses, and two barns—was indeed a Cultural Landscape and should be preserved for posterity. It concluded that Wesleyville is not a disjointed collection of abandoned buildings and overgrown vegeta-tion, but layered with archeological, built and natural signifi-cance. As a cultural landscape, its core heritage character is as a sanctuary of historic structures and cultural aspirations, amidst a regenerating natural landscape. To support revitalization of this abandoned community, six heritage advocates formed the Friends of Wesleyville Village in 2009. The Friends, now a charitable organiza-tion with over 150 members, began its work in 2010 on the decaying church. Lengthy discussions with the Hope Charge of the United Church resulted in a 20-year lease including explicit goals for the first five years. Those goals have now been accomplished and the Friends are planning to install accessibility features and a washroom. The group continues to work with OPG-owner of the rest of the village so that the rest of Wesleyville can be preserved and revitalized.

Past of the Lively Village Take a tour west along Lakeshore Road. Once you reach the intersection with Wesleyville Road there are no more buildings until you come upon downtown Wesleyville. All but the Church and the cemetery are now Ontario Power Generation (OPG) property, acquired in the late 1960s with the aim of constructing several generating stations on the shore of Lake Ontario. Construction of the oil-fired Wes-leyville Generating Station was halted in 1978 and the stack and buildings remain—repurposed or unused. Trees planted by OPG now cover former Lakeshore Road homesteads and cropland, recreating the landscape from when the early white settlers traveled the winding road between burgeoning lake side communities. Soldiers headed for Niagara in 1812-1814 must have seen a similar roadside landscape, now protected by the Municipality of Port Hope as a Designated Natural Area.

ACO President Susan Ratcliffe, Kathryn McHolm, Robert Sculthorpe & Sue Stickley

By Sue Stickley

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(Continued from previous page) Another kilometer west of the village, there are one or two heritage houses and a number of dwellings built in the 1960s and '70s. Once all this area was considered to be part of the bustling hamlet of Wesleyville. In fact, one Port Hope resident in her late 90s recalls walking from home on the boundary road near the railway tracks to Wesleyville school and church six days a week. That’s a round trip of about 15 km. By the 1860s Wesleyville had a school, a Methodist Church, a tavern, a black-smith shop, a machine shop, a cobbler and a carpenter. The foundation of a tavern, operated by Tom Clark from 1861-1864, can be found on Lot 30 Concession One. The story is that the tavern closed when Mr. Clark 'got religion' and dumped his liquor in the road. In 1860, it was necessary to build a new church, as the old wooden frame one had deteriorated, so John Barrow-clough, one of the area's founders, provided the land from the west side of his property. Named "Wesley Church", the hamlet continued to grow around the church as Wesleyville. The early school on the current site burned in 1899 and was replaced that year by the brick SS#2. It was closed in 1964 and is now owned by OPG. The post office was operated from 1875 until 1911 in the Barrowclough House, the earliest of the two houses still standing in the hamlet. In 1982 Len Oughtred, the last post master and owner of the “Y House", hinted at the reason for the 1944 closure. He told researchers for the Port Hope ACO Architectural and Historical Inventory, that in return for having his house open to the public seven days a week he received an annual salary of $100!

Purchase of homes, farms and buildings by Ontario Hydro in the late 1960s exaggerated the decline of the Wes-leyville community, but the closure of schools and churches and the changing rural economy were affecting most ham-lets throughout Hope Township. The opportunity now exists to preserve the cultural aspirations, stories and the way of life of people with names like Barrowclough, Austin, Reeve and Nichols buried in the peaceful Wesleyville cemetery. The atmosphere in Wesleyville is delightful. Hundreds of people are enjoying FOWV events and other group activi-ties in this special place. In fact, there’s a booking for a 50th wedding anniversary in July 2015 by a local couple married in the Church in 1965. Long-term plans for the Village include educational, conference and hostel ideas and rental facilities for wed-dings and community events. Together with OPG, local officials and groups we are bringing the Village back to life.

Tony Trevor explores Clark Tavern foundation

The "Y House"

Wesleyville School 1904

Willowae, 7132 Campbell Road, Campbellcroft, ON L0A 1B0Ph: 905-797-2424 • Cell: 416-457-1205

moya@moyamcphaildesign.comwww.moyamcphaildesign.com

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ACO Matters September 2013

Ever heard of the Grand Trunk, the Canadian North-ern, the Lindsay & Beaverton, or the Port Hope & Peterborough?

All were local railways, transporting passengers and freight north, west and east, which brought boom times and handsome homes to Port Hope in the 19th Century. Come and learn about them, and much more besides, on September 7th when Ted Rafuse, railway history en-thusiast, leads a Walking Tour on our local railway lore. Starting at Port Hope Public Library the walk, at a gentle pace, will include our 1856 Railway Station with its authentic waiting room, and ends back at the Library for tea, cucumber sandwiches and Railroad Cake (from an 1850s recipe).

Evenings with the ACO & Friends An 'Evening' in the Afternoon

Saturday, September 7th at 1:30pm • Port Hope Public Library“Different Courses for Iron Horses”

A Railway Walking Tour with Ted Rafuse

Numbers limited. $15.00 members, $18.00 non-mem-bers, including Refreshments. Make cheque to “ACO Port Hope – Railways”, and mail/deliver to 8 King St., Port Hope L1A 2R4. Include name and email or tel. no.

When a teacher at CDCI East, Ted co-developed a course in local history including its railway past. He now writes for various railway historical journals and has self-pub-lished three books on the subject. He is currently working with the Cobourg Museum Foundation on the railway promotion at their site. He has been one of the principal organizers of the Convention of the Canadian Assoc. of Railway Modellers this August.

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Patrick + Dee McGeeSales Representatives

We Specialize in“Unique” Properties

Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage

905-800-0321mail@mcgees.ca www.mcgees.ca

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS If you have questions or comments, we would like to receive them and will pass them on to be answered by the appropriate member of the board.

If the subject is of general interest, we shall publish the question and answer.

Peter John StokesWe much regret to announce the death of Peter John Stokes in Port Hope on July 30th. Peter was distinguished in the field of restoration architecture and wrote and collaborated on numerous books on the subject. We shall recognize Peter and the substantial debt owed him by Port Hope more fully in our next issue. Our very own Tom Cruickshank will present the

next in our continuing series of Evenings. His subject will be Old Ontario Houses, and his talk

will be modeled after his best-selling coffee-table book of the same name. The book (with photography by the renowned John de Visser) was designed to highlight some of the province’s most interesting residences, many of which are not well known outside their local neighbour-hoods. As his presentation criss-crosses the entire prov-ince, Tom promises to lend his insights into architectural style, regional variations and the state of preservation. He’ll even have signed copies of the book on hand at the unheard-of price of $25. Admission $15, $18 non-members, includes wine and refreshments. To book, see information under "Railway Walk", but make out cheque to "ACO Port Hope – Old Ontario Houses".

Tom Cruickshank on Old Ontario HousesThursday, October 17th, 2013 at 7pmP.H. Public Library

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ACO Matters September 2013

ARCHITECTURAL CONSERVANCy OF ONTARIO PORT HOPE BRANCH

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORMPlease enroll me as a member of the Port Hope Branch of the Architectural Conser-vancy of Ontario. I have indicated below my/our applicable membership category.

Name(s): ___________________________________________________

Address: ___________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

Telephone: __________________________________________________

E-Mail: ____________________________________________________

Individual Member: $35 ___________

Household Membership: $40 ___________

Student: $12 ___________

Total Enclosed: ___________

House Tour Volunteer □ Receiving ACO Matters by email

□

Garden Tour Volunteer □ Antiques & Artifacts Volunteer □Web Site Design & Maintenance□ Publicity / Public Relations □Design & Mounting Displays / Outreach

□

Please fill out this form and mail it with your cheque to:

ACO–Port Hope Branch PO Box 563, Port Hope, Ont. L1A 3Z4

eTextImageS E R V I C E S

Graphic & Web Design Services

patricia@etextimage.com� Patricia McCawwww.etextimage.com� 905-396-7313

www.ACOPortHope.ca

MAJOR UPCOMINg EVENTS‘EVENINg’ RAILWAy WALk

WITH TED RAFUSE September 7th, 1:30, Library (see page 6)

PORT HOPE FAIR ACO BOOTH September 13th, 14th, 15th

48TH PORT HOPE HOUSE TOUR Saturday, 5th October (see pages 1&3)

‘EVENINg’ TOM CRUICkSHANk ON OLD ONTARIO HOUSES

October 17, 7pm, Library (see page 7)

An Architectural Discovery Day, 6th Sept., starting 2pmWith a quiz about houses on College Street, a visit to two houses,

and dinner at the Woodlawn with guest speaker, Rob Mikel.$75�each�for�full�day�of�fun.�Tickets�available�beginning�of�September.

Cobourg:�King Street Books,�32�King�St.�W.,�905-372-1000Port Hope:�G. Facey,�57�Walton�St.,�905-885-1838�

Or�call�Cobourg ACO�at�905-372-7380

Friends of Wesleyville Village 2082�Lakeshore�Road,�Port�Hope�Contact:�Kathryn�McHolm�905-753-2196�Wesleyville Harvest Festival & Heritage Craft Sale Sunday,�September�29th,�10-4pmGhostly Visit Saturday,�October�26th,�6-8pm