The rescue (?)

Remember Elgin Hall?

Five months ago this blog had a good day. Local politicians accepted the idea that an ancient house in a tiny place in SW Ontario should not be bulldozed. You helped do that. Readers from across Canada made the point, in emails and posts to the busy little Facebook page, that it would be a crime to replace this building with an access road to a new subdivision of rural McMansions.

Time for an update. There is more news.

First, I shall acknowledge my conflicted position. Then you choose to read more or go organize your sock drawer (equally exciting).

Elgin Hall was built 173 years ago from bricks hauled by oxen to a crossroads called Mount Elgin by my ancestors. They were United Empire Loyalists, soldiers, merchants and politicians. My great-grandfather, Ebenezer Vining Bodwell, inherited it from his old man. He was the first MP for the area in Canada’s initial Parliament (1867). Later he ran the Welland Canal. He was appointed by Sir John A. to be accountant for the new CPR line to BC. Then he helped found the Vancouver Board of Trade. Some Blog Dogs found his grave on a site overlooking that city.

For a century Elgin Hall was in the family. In 1902 my 28-year-old grandmother held a legendary shindig, with waiters serving 57 people at a time in the dining room. In 1939 my parents were married on the front lawn. They named their first son Elgin.

After the last kin sold, it was owned in turn by three families. Eventually the lands were parceled off. The cows and pigs left. Houses sprung up around it. The last man to own it, Bob, called me one day a decade ago, having heard of the family connection. We became friends. I gave him a precious piece of furniture to return to the parlour – a sideboard made from a walnut tree that fell on the farm in the 1880s, bequeathed by my late mother.

Well, up the road near the 401 a new car plant was built. The real estate boom swept through and suddenly GTA refugees were paying $1.1 million to live in a former field. Elgin Hall was sold by Bob’s widow to a developer, Brian Graydon, who had already erected a mess of sprawly homes on one flank of the Hall’s remaining acre.

Graydon acquired the remaining lands surrounding it and pushed through plans for scores more homes and townhouses, turning sleepy Mount Elgin into a mini-Brampton. Elgin Hall was slated to be bulldozed so a connector road could run over it, joining his existing and new subdivisions.

Well, enter Debbie. And Cody. And George. And you. She mobilized community support and political pressure and mounted the online campaign so many Blog Dogs supported. Cody documented the heritage features of the big yellow pile of bricks. George the professor emeritus of history traced the family lineage and national significance of the site. Finally, one day in August local leaders arrived at their council meeting to see a bunch of reporters, TV cameras and this.

They did the right thing, voting to take the first steps towards preserving Elgin Hall, sparing it from the dozer. A month later they wavered a little under development pressure. A month more and council engaged a consulting company to report on whether or not Elgin Hall met the criteria to be designated provincially as a protected site.

The report is expected apace. Meanwhile it’s reported Graydon shut off power and heat to the building, which is need of a major gut and restoration. Will pipes burst? The developer has alternatively suggested keeping only the front wall and building a new home behind, to sell. He also offered – if the Hall is destroyed for a road – to erect a bench and memorial plaque to “those who lived there.”

Meanwhile I have offered to buy it, restore it and make space available to the community which shares its name. Crickets. Mr. Graydon does not respond. Perhaps he feels emboldened by Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s “More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022.” Not only does it mandate municipalities to throw up as many houses as possible and sanctions 7,000 acres of formerly-protected greenbelt and to do so, but it guts long-standing heritage provisions.

Says the Architectural Conservancy Ontario head: “Whether intended or not, the changes will make it practically impossible to protect most of Ontario’s identified heritage properties. This can only be seen as a knee-jerk response to a vindictive attack by the development industry on our heritage system. There was no consultation or consideration of the destructive impacts of these proposals across Ontario. Why drop a cluster bomb of changes into the heritage system that will not create a single unit of affordable housing?”

Well, we have conflict. Developer Graydon has new leverage. Local politicians are under provincial pressure to slap-bang approve subdivision plans. Protecting heritage sites is more onerous, restricted and involved. Who cares about history when the kiddos has been told building more houses will make them cheaper?

Cody tells us if councillors do the right thing and vote soon to designate the property under the heritage act it will be the first application in Ontario under the new law. “So,” says Debbie, “this is a very big deal.” If Elgin Hall is saved, new houses will just flow around it. My offer makes it clear the intent is preservation, not obstruction.

Nobody expects you to care about an old house. Or my forbearers who rocked it. But erasing history is reckless, arrogant. And typical.

About the picture: “I just love your blog and have learned so much I cannot tell you,” writes Jennifer. “You have impacted our lives and you don’t even know us.  Anyway, here is a dog pic! Our Golden/Collie x came from a doggie rescue. She’s 9 now and the best dog ever. Came from a Reserve in Quebec.”