1. Public Vistas of the Ontario Legislative Assembly in Jeopardy
Catherine Nasmith

Lloyd Alter, President of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, says its back to the drawing board for proposed tall buildings policies for downtown Toronto. ”It looks like the proposed heights policies in the study have not been tested against at least one of the three critical views that the report so clearly states should be protected, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario (LAO), We conclude that unless the recommendations are adjusted, the silhouette of the LAO building will be lost to future generations.”

ACO is calling on Premier Dalton McGuinty and Mayor Rob Ford to commit to a “time out” on development to give sufficient time to study what views need to be protected, and how best to do that.

There will be three public meetings this week on the policies outlined in the study, Tall Buildings Downtown, Inviting Change,

http://www.toronto.ca/planning/tallbuildingstudy.htm

For the past few years, starting under Past President Catherine Nasmith, ACO has been arguing for protection for the views of Queen’s Park. Alter continued “More recently, we have been working with the Centre for Landscape Research at the University of Toronto, a highly specialized computer modeling facility, analyzing the heights policies proposed in the Tall Buildings Downtown, Inviting Change. The Centre for Landscape Research (CLR) and du Toit Allsopp Hillier are experts in such analysis. They undertook the studies for the National Capital Commission and the City of Ottawa that led to the heights policies that protects the views of our National Symbols in Ottawa.”

The materials (attached) produced by the CLR will be unveiled at tonight’s public meeting, (6:30 at St. Basil’s Church). They show the existing height regime, what is proposed in the Tall Buildings Downtown study, and the OMB approved project at 21 Avenue Road.

“So far, we have focused our studies on views from the ceremonial approach, the drive north on University Avenue from Queen Street, but we are also very worried about the oblique views experienced from sidewalks on either side of University Avenue, and once the vista opens up north of College Street” says ACO President’s Circle member, urban designer, Robert Allsopp. “If something isn’t done immediately it will be too late.

The dignity of our democratic symbols is being rapidly undermined by private development all around Queen’s Park.”

Recently ACO has also been working with other concerned citizen’s groups across Ontario, Toronto councillors Kristen Wong-Tam, and Adam Vaughan, MPP’s Rosario Marchese and Glen Murray for civic improvements for the area that has been dubbed Ontario’s Capital Precinct, the territory from Queen to Bloor along University Avenue, and over to Toronto’s Old City Hall. This area is home to many important civic institutions such Toronto’s two city halls, our law courts, University of Toronto, hospitals, museums. It is a major cultural heritage landscape with the LAO building and Queen’s Park at its heart.

The recent OMB decision on 21 Avenue Road pointed out the clear lack of policy at both the City of Toronto and the Province to protect this view. MPP Rosario Marchese has introduced a private members bill (Bill 95) to protect the silhouette of the LAO from Queen Street and University Avenue, but so far there is nothing from the government side.

ACO is very grateful for the volunteer contribution of the CLR.

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For further information contact:

Lloyd Alter, President, Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, lloydalter@gmail.com 416 367 8075,
Catherine Nasmith, cnasmith@sympatico.ca, 416 598 4144
Robert Allsopp, robert@dtah.com , 416 968 9479-x 223

Editor's Note:
ACO needs your help on this, please see next piece for suggested actions

2. What You Can Do to Preserve the Views of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Catherine Nasmith

We got into this pickle because of a dance between the province and the City of Toronto where both left it to the other to take the lead. And the City of Toronto can’t do much to stop development now unless the premier steps in. If the Mayor of Toronto doesn’t ask him to step in the Premier will fear treading on big political feet.

That leaves the most important heritage site in the province of Ontario, a great cultural heritage landscape that has taken generations to create, with no protection, NONE. 

Here’s what you can do to help:

1. Satisfy yourself there is a problem

a.   To see the impact of the recommended height regime go to the ACO website and read the press release. I have also posted documents on Mobile Me 

ACO http://www.arconserv.ca/news_events/show.cfm?id=287

b. At the bottom of the page you will find the PDF document of the analysis of the recommended heights. Download and then scroll through it on your screen, you will see the impact from 3 different vantage points along University Avenue.

Mobile Me

Views Analysis https://files.me.com/cnasmith/t0nabe

ACO Press Release, word document

 https://files.me.com/cnasmith/rlg9h5

2. Take Action

a Write to the Premier and Mayor Ford:

Go to the ACO Facebook Page, or to Mobile Me, there you will see a template for a letter to Premier McGuinty asking him to call a “time out” to do full studies to protect the vistas, use the material there to draft a letter to your MPP, to Mayor Ford, and to the Premier.

Mayor Ford was surprised, and impressed to receive a letter from Guelph about the Queen’s Park issue.

ACO Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Architectural-Conservancy-of-Ontario/119712261437141

Nasmith-Mobile Me 

https://files.me.com/cnasmith/alowwg

b. Donate Money to ACO to Support the Research

Producing the images to support our argument takes a lot of time and effort, and you can only expect volunteers to work that hard for a short time. Money will be needed to finish the job. Go to http://www.arconsev.ca to donate.

c. Send a link to the Press Release to media in your area.

http://www.arconserv.ca/news_events/show.cfm?id=287

This is an issue for all Ontarians.

d. Ask your friends and family to help too.

3. The Pier Group congratulates Port Hope Council on the formation of the Pier Task Force
Rick Brooks, Secretary Pier Group

We have worked energetically for the past three years to help illustrate what a special place this is and to describe the potential to reuse these buildings for some creative purpose. We look forward to contributing our past work and future energy to detailed investigations by the Task Force of an exciting future for the Centre Pier. It wont be easy and we recognize there are hurdles to overcome. Issues of the harbour and site cleanup and those of building condition and scale of the project are serious considerations, of course.

However, set against these issues, the conservation and redevelopment, sometimes referred to as repurposing, of the Center Pier in Port Hope represents one of the greatest opportunities to both create a lively, interesting and uniquely Port Hope waterfront and to spark the general uplifting of the core of our beautiful historic town in a generation or more.

Designed in the 1850s and with a group of buildings dating to the turn of last century, Port Hope has the opportunity to join with a handful of communities in Ontario which have used increasingly rare post industrial waterfront resources to create truly exciting facilities for new uses. Old structures such as these, for many residents, contain spaces, views, materials and details that most of us rarely get to experience at first hand. Together with a spectacular view of the lake and waterfront in one direction and a panoramic view upriver to the historic core of our town nestled between two hills in the other, this is a very special place to convert for reuse. You would have to work hard to create a place with the attributes that already exist here.

There are compelling examples of smaller communities such as ours which have found uses for old industrial complexes such as this that have become significant cultural attractions. These attractions have not only created work and jobs within the project but have had terrific economic spin offs for all businesses in the community. MassMoca in North Adams Mass. is such a place. Closer to home, albeit a new facility, the local campus of Fleming College in Haliburton has had a similar effect: a higher education facility in the school year becomes an attraction as an art school in the summer.

If they can do it so can we!

Phil Goldsmith, Co-Chair
The Pier Group

4. Heritage Canada: The Future of Canada's Lighthouses

Heritage Canada Foundation welcomes Senate Committee’s recommendations for the future of Canada’s lighthouses

OTTAWA, Ontario, March 25, 2011 – The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) strongly supports the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans’ Report on the Implementation of the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act tabled yesterday, March 24, after many months of consultation with Canadians.

In its Report, the committee recognizes that the intent of the 2008 Act was undermined by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ move to declare 473 of its active lighthouses as “surplus.” As a result, local groups and communities are under pressure to assume the financial responsibility for maintenance and protection of almost all of Canada’s iconic lighthouses.

HCF strongly endorses the committee’s recommendation that the federal government therefore “provide the Heritage Canada Foundation with the seed funding to help launch a comprehensive campaign dedicated to raising funds for the restoration and preservation of Canada’s remaining historic lighthouses.”

“HCF is eager to work with the federal government, the corporate sector and private individuals to create a national lighthouse fund,” stated Natalie Bull, HCF’s executive director. “We agree with the senate committee that the ability to launch a comprehensive campaign that will deliver significant funds depends upon federal support.”

As the only national registered charity working to protect Canada’s historic places HCF has been fighting for the preservation of Canada’s lighthouses since 1997.

The Heritage Canada Foundation is a national registered charity dedicated to the preservation of Canada’s historic places. Your support is vital to our work. Please join or make a tax-deductible donation today.

For further information:
Carolyn Quinn, Director of Communications,
Telephone: 613-237-1066 ext. 229; Cell: 613-797-7206

5. Toronto Star: Exhibit Will it be on Display from University Avenue

Unobstructed views on display at Exhibit

Developers: Bazis International Inc., Plazacorp, Metropia Urban Landscapes

Size: 32 storeys

Architect Rosario Varacalli didn’t need to look very far for inspiration when he was designing Exhibit Residences, a 32-storey condo soon to be built directly across from the Royal Ontario Museum.

Daniel Libeskind’s Crystal, the striking 2007 addition to the ROM, was an obvious muse.

Varacalli, director of design and construction for Exhibit builder Bazis International, felt that the north side of Bloor St. should not merely serve as a “background of architecture” for Libeskind’s iconic work. (The Exhibit site is currently home to a McDonald’s and several other businesses).

Instead, Varacalli wanted his tower to have what he describes as an “understated dialogue” with the ROM adjunct.

Editor's Note:
This building is very close to the corner of Bloor and Avenue Road. City staff have tested the views from College and University, but we are not sure whether it is visible from further south. Hope not

Click here for Link

6. Daily Commercial News and Construction Record: War Memorial arch in Woodstock, Ontario is restored
DAN OREILLY

The inscription on the World War I memorial arch at Southside Park in Woodstock, Ont. pays tribute to the area’s veterans of that conflict.

Today, the community’s pledge to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice lives on, embodied in the way the city and consulting and contracting officials overcame numerous obstacles to preserve and reconstruct the historic structure, which had been deteriorating.

Mississauga-based Roof Tile Management spent over three months restoring and rebuilding it about five metres away from its original location. Locally based Pow Petermann Consulting Engineers was the consultant.

Constructed in 1925, the arch consists of two rubble stone pillars supporting a concrete beam bearing a two-line inscription. The first line reads: 1914-18. The second line reads: Truth ... Duty ... Valour.

Over the decades, the beam had deteriorated to the point where major repairs were required, says Bob McFarland, the city’s director of community services.

Click here for Link

7. Daily Commercial News and Construction Record: Workers reinstall original bricks from 1925 car dealership on the face of a new Toronto condo
DON PROCTER

Cameras are a masonry heritage contractor’s best friend when dismantling, cataloguing and storing historic building facades and architectural details.

The Neo-Gothic limestone and brick façade of the 1925 McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom on Toronto’s Bay St. is a perfect example. The structure was carefully taken down two years ago to make way for the Burano, a 48-storey condo tower. Today the two-storey façade is being reassembled on the face of the new tower as it rises.

Yet, putting Humpty Dumpty back together was never so easy. “We took tons and tons of pictures, which has become a huge asset to us in putting this back up,” says Chris Huntley, project manager of Heritage Restoration Inc., the masonry restoration contractor on the job. “We measured the building two years ago, but drawings can only tell you so much. The pictures we took were just as important and provided us with a record of what the building looked like.”

Each stone was measured and numbered, drawings were produced and photos taken before the façade elements were stored in the contractor’s shop for two years. About 4,000 rug-faced bricks were also removed from the backside of the building as extras to replace any façade bricks damaged beyond repair.

Click here for Link

8. Amherstburg Echo: Working group to be formed to assist Bellevue restorations
Ron Giofu

Town council unanimously gets behind cause

Town council has agreed to put together a working group to work towards renovating the historic Bellevue property.

Located in the 500 block of Dalhousie St., Bellevue was originally built in 1816 and has received provincial and federal historic designations and has been designated under the Ontario Heritage Act by the town as well. John McDonald, a representative of the Friends of Bellevue group, told town council Monday night the home was a sign of "hope and optimism" as it was constructed when the town was coming out of the War of 1812.

Click here for Link

9. Daily Commercial News and Construction Record: Century limestone landmark at St. Michael Catholic School in Belleville being restored
DON PROCTER

The contractor even found the original quarry site to match the limestone perfectly.

The Algonquin Lakeshore Catholic District School Board is going the extra mile to restore its early 20th century limestone school, a landmark on the main street of Belleville.

Builders of the two-year project are taking a sometimes daunting approach that will see the exterior of St. Michael Catholic School restored to its appearance of 100 years ago, while neatly tucking a single-storey addition behind the heritage building.

“The owners don’t have to do the extensive restorative process they have chosen to because the building doesn’t have a heritage designation, but they are committed to doing the right thing,” says Arran Brannigan, operations manager of the Limen Group Ltd., the masonry contractor for the job.

Click here for Link

10. Daily Commercial News and Construction Record: Colonial Building Restoration finishing exterior job at Toronto YWCA
DON PROCTER

Sensitively integrating all or part of an old building into new tower is often a complex and sometimes trying process for the design team.

The work doesn’t get any easier for contractors charged with preserving or restoring the existing building, especially when it is historically significant and made of materials easily damaged — but not so easily restored.

Take 163-year-old brick and limestone for example. That’s the age of the striking three-storey buff brick and stone building that fronts the new YWCA Elm Centre project in downtown Toronto.

The development — a 300-unit affordable and supportive housing project for women and women-led families — includes three new buildings, one of which rises 10 floors behind the historic building erected in 1848 to serve poor people and seniors.

The contractor restoring the old building’s façade and two sides is Colonial Building Restoration. The job, which wraps up this spring, has been anything but straightforward, largely because the building has gone through a series of renovations and additions in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Click here for Link

11. Daily Commercial News and Construction Record: Contractors busy restoring Vancouver city hall's historical facade
JEAN SORENSEN

Vancouver's city hall is undergoing a major facelift, but the iconic structure's 500 unique windows are making the job a challenge.

"We had to take measurements on every window," said Barry McGinn, an architect and professional engineer, with McGinn Engineering & Preservation Ltd., which was consulted on the restoration of the exterior stone face and windows.

The structure was built in 1935-36, during the Great Depression, at a staggering cost of $1 million.

The windows utilize a tilt-and-glide system, a 1930s design that has long since fallen out of use.

McGinn said the windows basically work on a central pivot and by pulling up and forward the bottom would tilt in and the top would tilt out providing ventilation.

The windows and sashes are being changed to allow for double-glazed windows.

The old fittings are being transferred to the new double-glazed, while new tilt-and-glide windows are being fabricated.

Click here for Link

12. Daily Commercial News: OAA Building Gets an Upgrade

The Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) is gearing up to renovate its iconic 19-year-old headquarters building in Toronto.

Plans call for upgrading and repair or replacement of curtainwall as well as sections of windows and the building envelope on the two-storey, 21,400-square-foot building designed by architect Ruth Cawker and built by PCL Constructors at a cost of $4.6 million.

Also on the agenda is roof replacement.

The overall budget is $1 million. Work is expected to get under way late this summer.

OAA president Sheena Sharp said the planned renovations were sparked initially by maintenance concerns, cracked window units and a leaky roof.

Click here for Link

13. Details, Vol XX, No 2, April - June 2011 - Canada Post to Issue Five Stamps in Honour of Canadian Art Deco Architecture
Posted by Marcia Cuthbert

Architecture: Art Deco Issue Date: June 9 2011

Canada Post to issue new Stamps on Art Deco Architecture in Canada...take a look!

Click here for Link

14. King Township Sentinel: Committee urges council to do more to protect heritage buildings
David Anderson

King council Monday night was called upon by the King Heritage Advisory Committee to protect heritage sites within the township.

A presentation was made by committee co-chair Fiona Cowles and heritage researcher Pamela Vega. The committee was putting forth the idea to implement policies and actions that encourage heritage conservation. As well, they recommended hiring on a heritage planner.

Cowles said the committee was established in 1982 by council as the Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC).

“Volunteers were drawn from a resident pool of expertise in local history, building restoration, architecture and planning,” she commented, adding LACAC was placed under the Ontario Heritage Act as a means of helping municipalities conserve properties of significant heritage value or interest. “By 1986, LACAC produced a list of 600 properties to be protected, each place was photographed and basic data listed, such as construction date, ownership, general condition of the building, cultural or architectural significance and current use.”

Click here for Link

15. Kingston Whig-Standard: Station could be symbol of pride
Floyd Patterson

Columnist says neglect of CN Outer Station is inexcusable

The inexcusable neglect of the historic Outer Station by a laggard local government bespatters Kingston's heritage reputation. Would CN, owner of the property, having tried to give it to the city for $1 and then to sell it to 698342 Ontario Limited, without in either case restoring it first, be any more unjust?

In fairness, CN has recognized the station as historic property; in reality, it takes a strictly utilitarian, bean-counting attitude to this very valuable, original gem of the 19th-century railway expansion era. It is the only surviving original headquarters of the first mainline railway in Canada.CNcould spend millions buying up shipping and railway companies in the U.S., but couldn't invest a comparatively trivial sum to restore its Kingston station after fire consumed part of the roof in 1996.

In 2003, the city's Building Conservation Master Plan described it as "in extremely poor and unsafe condition." Still, no move to restore CN's and Kingston's rail heritage. City council, about to spend more than $100 million on new and refurbished entertainment and sports centres in 2003, lacked the courage to accept the site for $1 and invest $1.6 million to restore the Grand Trunk station. I was one of the councillors to gulp in disbelief. It was a chance to revive "Grand Trunk Village," told about in Gordon Smithson's book, to give the north side importance, and give Kingston back its elegant Italianate unique railway station.

Click here for Link

16. London Free Press: Contractor charged for illegal demolition
Jane Sims

Contractor facing fraud charge says he was paid to punch holes in historic hotel in 2008 to thwart deal-breaking heritage designation

http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/03/23/17732711.html

Click here for Link

17. Moose Radio: Bala Falls-- Minister of Environment Refuses EA Request
Wendy Gray

Muskoka Lakes Mayor Not Surprised By MOE Decision

The Mayor of Muskoka Lakes Township is encouraging all interested parties to carefully examine a decision from the Ministry of the Environment. Yesterday the Township and over 100 other concerned residents were notified that the MOE has denied their request for an elevated Environmental Assessment for the planned hydro electric facility at Bala Falls. That means that the request to have an Environmental Assessment done by someone other than the developer is dead in the water. Muskoka Lakes Mayor Alice Murphy says while the decision doesn't surprise her because the MOE has almost never followed their own process, she is concerned that the government denied the request in light of new and what she calls glaring deficiencies in Swift River Energy's plans…

On top of that Murphy says the review of the economic impact study has also been done and contains major holes. Another thing on Murphy’s mind is a new acronym that’s being floated about. It’s NIMSAR, which stands for “Not if My Seat’s At Risk”. Alice Murphy fears the provincial Liberals are ignoring the plight of Bala Falls and a planned hydro electric facility because the riding is Tory blue…

Murphy encourages people to carefully examine the decision and if they choose, to file an appeal by the deadline of April 14th.

Editor's Note:
The new mayor of Muskoka Lakes is not going to let this go down easy, she has hit the nail on the head with NIMSAR. But last I noticed this is an election year, and McGuinty is going to need all the seats he can find.

Click here for Link

18. Owen Sound Sun Times: St. Mary's annex to come down
DENIS LANGLOIS

The fate of the original, 120- year-old wing of St. Mary's High School in Owen Sound might have been different if the historic structure had a "champion" to speak against its pending demolition, several city councillors said Monday night.

Council voted 6-3 to approve a plan by the Bruce Grey Catholic District School Board that requires demolishing the annex in order to build a new, mostly glass entranceway at the school's west end.

The approval comes with several conditions, such as requiring the school board to deliver on its plan to build a faux entryway, similar to the original entrance and made with salvaged materials, to serve as a "monument" to the 1891 school after it is demolished.

Click here for Link

19. The Hamilton Spectator: Hambly House Restoration
Jeff Mahoney

Art Moderne residence is shipshape again: Hambly House faithfully restored

Why is it that so many of our houses look more or less alike?

In Westdale's Tudor-congested waters, Martin Hering is sailing under a rogue flag.

If a nautical metaphor seems an ill fit for something as grounded as architecture, consider that the house that Jack (Hambly) built in 1939, and that Martin has so faithfully restored, is deliberately meant to channel the idea of a ship.

There is a porthole window, a concrete patio with stylized deck rail at the front, and a handsome contoured faade, which sweeps sleekly to the north in a broad curve, pitched over a cutaway corner. Even the lawn has been landscaped to give the effect of a wave.
"It stands out," says Hering, 38, who bought the landmark residence at 170 Longwood Rd. N. a year ago, so fired up was he about its historically important styling.

"It's horizontal with a flat roof, where all around it is vertical." And white stucco where everything is brick. The numer-ous arches, circles and curves contrast with the angularity of the prevailing Tudor revivalism in the neighbourhood.

There's a bus stop in front of the house. Everyone stares. Many inquire about it, as do the runners, cyclists and dog-walkers.

"I don't think I've ever had so many interruptions on a job," says Andrew Skuce of Paradigm Shift Custom Heritage Restoration in Paris, Ont. "We have great conversations."

If more people are talking than before, it's because they can see it better. As part of the painstaking renovation (worth about $100,000), Hering has had the ivy torn away from the stucco. Bushes and topiary have been trimmed back to en-hance visibility. He wants people to see it, think about it. He has cleaned the stucco, original from '39. It contains quartz, and the house's coat gleams like licked candy on a sunny day.

Skuce is working on the casement windows, with their elegantly machined brass adjusters. They too are original and he's managed to save all, when every other restorer Hering contacted had written them off and wanted to go with re-placements.

"We didn't let the vinyl window pirates get to it," says Skuce.

"It was a conscious thing," Hering says of the way that ship shapes are quoted in the house's architecture. In the first half of the 20th century, architects were fascinated by speed and movement.

"Ocean liners, trains, airplanes, cars, technology, everyone was excited about the future," says Hering, a political scien-tist and preservationist. "Art Deco reflected this, with a streamlined look."

There are Art Deco elements at 170 Longwood, such as the ogee curves and ziggurat accents of the front door surround. But strictly speaking the style is a later refinement called Art Moderne, braiding strands of Art Deco, brutalism (lots of concrete) and the spare International style rooted in the German Bauhaus School.

So how did this strange apparition come into being, in a place like Hamilton?

Hering says the influence of the TH&B station may have played a role. It was a local masterpiece of Art Deco railway architecture, the only one in Canada, nicely restored as the current GO station at Hughson and Hunter.

The house is one of only about five or six such Art Moderne buildings in the area. And the only local one preserved in its original state.

The interior of the house is a triumph of period fidelity. Art Deco fireplace, rolled glass in the windows, waterfall furni-ture from the '40s, original plywood cupboards, Formica countertop, and a beautiful rail car dining booth nook, as well as the discordant but delightful faux wood treatment (National Park Rustic) in the basement.

Hering, originally from Germany, says preservation is in his blood. His parents visited from Kassel, near Frankfurt, to help with the house, and they spent three days fixing up a heating grate.

"One of the best things about the renovation," says Hering, who has applied for heritage designation, "is that I can show Teddi."

Teddi is Teddi Maziar, the woman who lived in the house since the early '60s and who sold it to Hering last year. One of the reasons she sold it to him rather than one of the three other bidders, says Hering, is that he was so committed to restoring its originality.

He says he hopes she will come to the party he is throwing, scheduled for Saturday, April 23, to celebrate the comple-tion of the reno.

For a closer look at Hambly House, log on to 170longwood.ca.

jmahoney@thespec.com
905-526-3306

Click here for Link

20. yourottawaregion.com: North Greenville - Fate of Acton's Corners schoolhouse delayed
J.P. Antonacci

The Acton’s Corners schoolhouse, reported to be all but sold to a private developer pending a zoning change, received an unexpected reprieve at the North Grenville council meeting Monday night.

The municipality had reached an agreement to sell the former schoolhouse at 1631 County Rd. 43, one of several heritage buildings declared surplus last June. The buyer was to convert the distinctive turn of the century stone building into what Forbes Symon, North Grenville’s Director of Planning and Development, described at the last Committee of the Whole meeting as a “modest” single family dwelling. Passage of the rezoning bylaw, which would convert the land around the schoolhouse from rural-industrial to rural-special exemption, was a condition of purchase.

But thanks to a last minute outcry from the heritage community and concerned citizens, which came to a head at an hour-long public meeting, council deferred the decision for two weeks until further investigation could be made into the potential costs involved with preparing the building for sale.

Despite assurance from CAO Andy Brown that the buyer, not the municipality, would be responsible for carrying out an archeological assessment and solving any mould issues in the schoolhouse prior to further renovation, councillors Ken Finnerty and Terry Butler declared that they were not prepared to vote on the zoning bylaw without learning more about the potential pitfalls of the sale.

This decision was met with cheers by approximately 20 concerned citizens, some of whom had addressed council and expressed their support for the Acton’s Corners site as a vital part of North Grenville’s cultural heritage.

Editor's Note:

For the real estate listing and associated photographs see, http://www.olx.ca/1631-county-rd-43-kemptville-05-000-iid-130484236

"Own a heritage piece of North Grenville past with this stately one room school house with original interior including paneled walls & ceiling,wood stove, chalk boards,cupboards,desks,and original school bell.Interior of building is designated Heritage as are the outside privies.Exterior of building is designated as being both historically & architecturally significant.Area to east of school also protected."

Click here for Link

21. Response to Revue Cinema Request
Robert Hill

Dear Peter,

We have located pictures and drawings for a theatre on Roncesvalles Avenue called the Parkview Moving Picture House, which opened in 1913. Can you tell us the original name of your building? Was it called The Parkview Moving Picture House? Does is measure 25' wide and 115' feet deep with 400 seats? If yes, then I think we have found your building and the name of the architect.
Regards
Robert G. Hill,
Architect, OAA, FRAIC
Editor, Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada 1800-1950

http://dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/