Steve Leach/Steve Leach
10701 County Road 2, Grafton, Ont.
Asking price: $1,495,000
Taxes: $5,208.80 (2021)
Lot size: approximately 7 acres
Agent: Lee Caswell, Bosley Real Estate Ltd.
The backstory
The home was originally opened as the Spalding Inn in 1834.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Growing up in Port Hope, Ont., Lee Caswell was surrounded by heritage buildings in the town where the first European settlers were United Empire Loyalists. Mr. Caswell went on to own and operate his eponymous antiques business in the historic downtown.
“Everyone said ‘you’re going to have to go to the city,’ but I never did.”
Mr. Caswell’s expertise landed him a role as an appraiser on all four seasons of Canadian Antiques Roadshow. He has a long involvement with the Port Hope chapter of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.
So when Mr. Caswell and his partner, Blaise Gaetz, learned five years ago that a historic former inn was coming up for sale in the nearby village of Grafton, they were immediately intrigued.
The property was carved from a large swath of land the British Crown granted to the Anglican clergy along the north shore of Lake Ontario following the American Revolutionary War.
Local property records show that T.M. Spalding purchased a parcel from the clergy and, in 1834, built a stately brick dwelling with Georgian influences. He opened it as the Spalding Inn along the thoroughfare known at the time as the Kingston Road.
The inn became the halfway house for travelers making the three-day journey by stage coach from Kingston to Toronto.
Eventually the inn became a single-family home that belonged to only a handful of owners over the years.
“It has huge stretches of time when it was owned by the same family,” Mr. Caswell says.
A log cabin dating from the 1850s was brought to the property by previous owners.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
The owners in the 1990s brought a circa-1850 Quebec log cabin piece-by-piece to Ontario and had it reassembled on the property to house their business, Van Schyndel-Lachapelle Antiques.
Mr. Caswell and Mr. Gaetz decided to make the move from Port Hope to the hamlet of Grafton.
“It’s my first time living in the country,” Mr. Caswell says. “The opportunity came to buy it, and why not take the plunge?”
The house is not designated under heritage conservation rules, Mr. Caswell explains, but it’s well-preserved, with English and American influences in the architecture.
“It’s always been a quite well-looked-after house,” he says.
The house today
The owners have preserved the home's elegant winding staircase and pine floors.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Mr. Caswell and Mr. Gaetz slowly brought some modern comforts to the house while preserving the heritage elements such as an elegant, winding staircase and original pine floors.
The house retains its period 12-over-12 windows and six-panel doors with Regency inset period knobs and locks. There are four wood-burning fireplaces, including one with an enameled stove insert.
During its days as an inn in the 1830s, Mr. Caswell explains, slender slip rooms with beds were tucked in behind the public areas that accommodated diners and drinkers.
The home features four wood-burning fireplaces.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Previous owners reconfigured some of the interior to create a more traditional layout of living and dining rooms, Mr. Caswell explains.
“At some point they took out the slip rooms and created big rooms,” he says.
Over the years, he believes previous owners operated a small bed-and-breakfast inn.
Today, the house has three bedrooms and three full bathrooms in 3,200 square feet of living space.
The ceilings are nine-feet high on the ground floor and nearly 10-feet high on the second floor.
An addition at the rear of the house holds the kitchen, which was charming but dated when the couple purchased it.
“It had three or four layers of old floors,” Mr. Caswell says.
The remodelled kitchen is in a rear addition.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Mr. Caswell and Mr. Gaetz tore out the previous owners’ cabinets and hired a designer to create a simple white kitchen with a beamed ceiling, lower cabinets, open upper shelves, stainless steel appliances and a large island topped in quartz.
Rear stairs likely rose to servants’ quarters in the past. Today, they lead to a family room and full bathroom above the kitchen.
Upstairs, the master bedroom has an ensuite bathroom and a fireplace. There are two additional bedrooms and a bathroom.
Steve Leach/Steve Leach
The master suite includes a fireplace and ensuite bathroom.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Outside, the kitchen is surrounded by a charming glassed-in porch.
“We live out there in the summer,” Mr. Caswell says. “You feel like you’re part of the garden.”
There’s also an east-facing stone patio next to the house and a long-standing silver maple with a huge trunk and low-slung branches.
“If three or four people linked arms, you could get your arms around it,” Mr. Caswell says. “I think it’s nestled in there. It doesn’t seem to catch the wind.”
Steve Leach/Steve Leach
A stone patio faces east, nestled near a large, low-slung maple tree.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
Mr. Caswell says the interior makes a fine setting for the couple’s collection of furniture and art.
During his time in the antiques business, Mr. Caswell purchased a set of drapes that once hung in the William Mellis Christie mansion on Queen’s Park Crescent in Toronto. The chocolate brown chinoiserie fabric displays fanciful scenes of pagodas. For years, he kept the drapes tucked away because he didn’t have a room with windows that could hold them. Now they hang in one of the home’s bedrooms.
“It’s a great backdrop. You could display anything here,” he says.
These days, Mr. Caswell is a real estate agent with Bosley Real Estate Ltd. He still maintains a presence in the antiques business in Grafton with a small collection called The Curio.
“Once you’re in that antiques world, it’s hard to get out of it,” he says.
The home's interior serves as an excellent backdrop for the owners' collection of antiques.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
The Quebec log cabin still stands on the property and could be used as a studio or home office, he points out.
The house and grounds have been included in the Architectural Conservancy’s house tour in the area.
Mr. Caswell says the location is quiet but not remote, with Lake Ontario about 10 minutes to the south and Cobourg about 15 minutes away. That town has a train station with rail service to Toronto.
The restaurants and wineries of Prince Edward County and the beaches of Presqu’ile Provincial Park are nearby.
The best feature
The home is on a seven-acre property with woods and a spring-fed pond.Steve Leach/Steve Leach
The seven acres of grounds include woods and gardens in an undulating landscape.
Behind the log cabin is a spring-fed pond and two small streams converge on the property.
There is a second access road to the property from Brimley Road to the east.
“I call it the farmer’s lane,” Mr. Caswell says. “If you have a big event, you can park 20 or 30 cars there.”
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