In some places, heritage architecture seems like an afterthought, or, worse, something that doesn’t appear on the radar until there’s an emergency. Heritage, in those places, is left to the hobbyists.
But not in Port Hope, Ont., where heritage is serious business, and has been since at least the 1960s.
The municipality has “the highest number of preserved historic structures per capita in Canada,” says old home enthusiast Lee Caswell, who also happens to be a realtor with Bosley Real Estate Ltd. “So, another city like Toronto may have more, but per capita we’re farther ahead, which is hard to believe.”
It’s easier to digest at Walton and John streets – about 150 metres from where Mr. Caswell once ran an antique store – where two restoration projects compete for attention. At 81 Walton St., the old Walton Hotel (built by Irish immigrant James Cochrane as the Queen’s Hotel in 1870) is transforming into The Walton Residences (by Sidestreet Developments). Across the road at 85 Walson St. the long-awaited rebirth of the Music Hall/Opera House – which spent most of its life as a bank and with the stunning second-floor auditorium used as a mechanical attic – will see the 1870 building morph into not only a performance venue, but an artists’ residence and a restaurant that will pick ingredients from a rooftop farm (by HopeTowns Initiative).
St. Lawrence Hotel, saved in 1965.Dave LaBlanc/The Globe and Mail
Fittingly, the Music Hall shares a wall with the old St. Lawrence Hotel, which was purchased and restored by Albert B. (Peter) Schultz (1923-1969) in 1965 after the American took up permanent residence in 1955. Editor and publisher of The Evening Guide, Mr. Schultz was the first president of the Port Hope branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, the third to be established after the Hamilton and Toronto branches.
Before walking over to Walton and John, Mr. Caswell and Tina Hubicki (also with Bosley) gave your humble Architourist a crash course in Port Hope’s architectural history, starting with the founding (European) families of Smith Walton, and Ridout via a driving tour. Elias Smith’s Canada House, 1799-1800, is “the oldest standing structure” in town, according to historicplaces.ca.
Mr. Caswell, former president of the Port Hope ACO (1990-91), had read my 2023 pieces on the abundance of heritage architecture in Dundas, Ont. and St. Mary’s, Ont. and wasn’t content to let Port Hope fall between the cracks. So, during the drive, the proud Port Hoper set the record straight.
An old farm’s outbuildings embraced in a modern home
He pointed to the Norman castle that is the Capital Theatre (1930, architect Murray Brown), fully restored in the early-1990s right down to the Brenograph projectors that beam clouds onto the ceiling; the 1912 Carnegie library; the restored 1946 Memorial Bandshell, moved from behind Town Hall to a more visible location in Memorial Park and reopened in 2006; and he told me about Merwin Austin, the Rochester, N.Y.-based architect responsible for Town Hall (1851) and commercial blocks at 16 to 26 and 34 to 46 Walton St. along with the St. Lawrence Hotel at No. 87 to 97.
“If I was selling prominent type houses to people, I’d say: ‘Well, the three prominent streets are Augusta, Dorset and King,’” Mr. Caswell, says with a laugh as we turned onto Augusta Street and began the private residence portion of the tour. After passing little worker’s cottages, we marvelled at the much bigger houses up the hill just before Augusta Street bends and becomes Sherbourne Street.
Terralta Cottage.Dave LaBlanc/The Globe and Mail
We tucked in to see the hidden Penryn Homestead (1828) – and I’d recommend a local to drive should you want to recreate this tour – before we hit Dorset Street to see 1857’s Terralta Cottage at No. 160 and Muidar at No. 108, which is radium spelled backward (the house was once owned by Marcel Pochon, who worked under Marie Curie and became the area’s “leader in the radium-extraction work” according to nuclearheritage.com).
After we’d passed the partially burned former Globe File Manufacturing Co. building on Cavan Street, we drove south to see the “captain’s houses” that face the river at the bottom of King Street (“so you could watch your ships come in,” says Mr. Caswell), before finally checking the famous Bluestone House off the list.
Here, at 21 Dorset St. E., sits the 1834 Greek Revival house built by John David Smith, son of Elias Smith. Built of limestone rubble, it was coated with stucco that was then scored to give the appearance of ashlar blocks. After a few churches and some “twins” and “triplets” (identical houses), Mr. Caswell pointed the car west to what was known as Englishtown to show me a “checkerboard cottage” he restored some years back, (13 Church St.).
Checkerboard cottage.Dave LaBlanc/The Globe and Mail
Covered in aluminum siding, he spotted something: “Once we stripped off the [enclosed] porch and took the drywall off the brick, you could see the checkerboard,” he said. “Everywhere else had been painted, so it was sort of a gun to the head [since] it’s the only one in town – are you going to paint it again or are you going to unearth it? You have to [unearth it].”
Perhaps that “have to” is why heritage is serious business in Port Hope, and attracts (and keeps) heritage-minded residents such as architects Philip Goldsmith and Phillip Carter, plaster conservation expert Rod Stewart and structural engineers Shannon and David Bowick, and boasts the “largest and most active branch” of the ACO. In fact, most heritage success stories can be traced directly to fundraising or actual bricks-and-mortar work by the branch (pop into Furby House Books at 65 Walton St. and pick up ACO Port Hope’s Sixty Reasons to Celebrate: 1964-2024 for very entertaining proof).
“When I was a kid, you got out of high school, you got the hell out of Dodge,” finishes Mr. Caswell. “Everybody left, except me … but now they’re all coming back, and we’re selling them houses.”
Think your Ontario town is as beautiful? Send an e-mail to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.com and we’ll talk.