‘Every child’s drawing of a house’ near Georgian Bay

370474 B Concession, Meaford, Ont.

Asking Price: $1,895,000

Taxes: NA

Land Size: 10 acres

Agents: Max Hahne and James McGregor (Engel & Volkers Toronto Central)

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The back story

Katharine Lochnan and George Yost were searching for a weekend retreat when they happened upon a classic Gothic revival stone cottage in rolling farmland near the shores of Georgian Bay.

The circa-1876 dwelling in Grey County was not for sale on that day in 1985, but Ms. Lochnan, senior curator emerita at the Art Gallery of Ontario, was enamoured.

She noted a plaque outside, which commemorated the 250-acre farm founded by Thomas and Isabella Fraser in 1847.

“It was every child’s drawing of a house,” she says of the farmhouse with a steep gable and pointed arch window above the front door.

The exterior was built of granite boulders left behind by the last ice age and fossilized limestone quarried from the Niagara escarpment. The result was a medley of pink, ochre, black, white and grey stone.

“If that house was ever for sale, that’s the house I want,” she told Mr. Yost, an architectural designer and landscape architect.

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The following winter, the couple were visiting friends in the area and asked a local real estate agent to search for any stone houses for sale.

The agent turned up three, but the first two were too rough to restore. With one left on the tour, the agent turned onto a road that the couple recognized immediately.

“We simply couldn’t believe it when she turned down this side road,” Ms. Lochnan recalls.

The Fraser farm, which extended to the bay, had been purchased by a developer who planned to build new houses along the waterfront. The original homestead was parcelled off with 10 acres of land.

Ms. Lochnan and Mr. Yost stepped into their cross-country skis and set off down the unplowed drive.

If the home had preserved woodwork, an indoor bathroom and a working furnace, they would buy it, Ms. Lochnan decided before they reached the front door.

Satisfied that the building had all three, the couple told the agent they would take it. Mortgage rates were 16¾ per cent at the time, Ms. Lochnan recalls, but she scraped together a down payment.

“We were just so thrilled,” Ms. Lochnan says. “It was the most extraordinary synchronicity.”

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The house today

The couple went straight to work on restoring the cottage, which Ms. Lochnan describes as Victorian in style with some Georgian details.

“The farm became a joint project over a 30-year period,” she says.

The escape from the city was particularly rejuvenating during the times she was writing her doctoral thesis and curating international exhibitions, she adds.

The property came with a falling-down drive shed and a vast antique barn that gave her the same feeling of awe as entering a French Gothic cathedral.

Eventually, the couple tore down the summer kitchen and woodshed at the rear of the house, and Mr. Yost, who studied architecture, designed a board-and-batten addition.

The new portion added a great room overlooking the swimming pool, a new kitchen, a dining room, a library and a reclaimed 1876 front door transported from another county.

Today, the combined house has three bedrooms and three bathrooms over more than 2,500 square feet of living space.

There are three gas fireplaces, two furnaces, central air conditioning and a basement specially sealed to preserve Ms. Lochnan’s collection of prints and drawings.

“It’s like two houses back to back,” she says, with the stone wall of the old house revealed in the new kitchen.

The curator and the restoration expert – who both studied art history - clashed over some elements, Ms. Lochnan recalls with a laugh, but she gives credit for the design to Mr. Yost, who died in 2016.

“He was extraordinarily gifted,” Ms. Lochnan says of her late husband. “He could cane, he could needlepoint, he made drapes.”

Eventually, the old barn became too ramshackle to save, but the couple left the stone foundation in place as a garden folly.

Today, seven of the 10 acres are farmed by a local farmer as part of the adjacent land, Ms. Lochnan explains, and the property is eligible for a tax credit as a result.

Grey County offers plenty of outdoor activities, including hiking, golf, boating, horseback riding and skiing, Ms. Lochnan notes. Canoeists and kayakers can access Georgian Bay from spots on the shoreline that once belonged to the farm.

Throughout their decades in the county, the couple became very involved with the thriving arts scene in the nearby town of Owen Sound.

They were also part of a band of locals who restored a former red-brick church in the nearby hamlet of Leith and launched a summer concert series in the historic building.

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The best feature

Ms. Lochnan describes the farm’s setting as evocative of the renowned artist Tom Thomson, who was born in Leith and was later buried there.

She and Mr. Yost spent many years tending to the property surrounding the cottage.

There’s an inground swimming pool sheltered by towering trees, including one maple on the property which has been standing for more than 200 years, Ms. Lochnan says.

Her English cottage perennial garden includes shrubs and roses planted during the Frasers’ tenure.

“There’s something magical about the landscape up here,” Ms. Lochnan says. “It’s like being in a living art gallery.”