LABOUR OF LOVE
Restoring family home labour of love for historian
Historian restores family home.
“Put a match to it.”
It was an old dilapidated house that, as some suggested, probably would have made dandy firewood.
But Ken Donovan had other plans.
When Donovan and his wife Barbara purchased the Ingonish home at the base of Franey Mountain overlooking the estuary of the Clyburne River in 1990, he knew they were buying an important piece of his family’s history. Five generations of Donovans had lived there, and with a little work, it would be home to even more.
He also knew he was in for a lot of work. It ended up being 27 years worth, to be exact.
The home looked like it had led a full life that didn’t always go well. It had a leaky roof, 16 layers of wallpaper and few of the amenities that most of us take for granted, like insulation, although the 16 layers of wallpaper managed to provide their own insulating properties.
The balloon-framed, half-timbered home was actually two houses joined together, common among houses of that period that were expanded when families became bigger.
“It’s sort of a miracle that this house survived,” recalls Donovan, 67. “It was in a pretty sorry state.”
Known as the home of James and Catherine Donovan, the home had been built in the 1820s. The fact that it was still standing in 1990 was a testimony to the quality of the home’s initial workmanship. And that in itself is surprising since the home belonged to working class people, who didn’t have money to spare.
Traditionally, older homes that survive until today are usually those of the wealthier citizens who could afford bigger and better-built houses, says Donovan, a published historian with 35 years spent at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site.
Those homes today are often turned into bed and breakfasts or even museums. But the Donovan house never had aspirations of housing well-off travellers. It was simply a wellloved family home.
“It’s one of the oldest Irish houses in Ingonish,” says Donovan. “Very few houses of that era survive because these are working class houses. In other words, they’re the houses of the poor.”
It didn’t help that it can cost more to properly restore a home than to start fresh. But for Donovan, that wasn’t the point.
“The house tells you a story — if you have stories to go along with the house, the house has a lot of meaning,” he says. “If you have a house and it doesn’t have the stories, it doesn’t carry as much meaning.”
The work took place thanks to family members who spent much of their time helping the Donovans restore the property.
“My wife and I supported each other and she especially supported me and many of her family did and my family,” said Donovan.
“Some people said ‘put a match to it’ because that’s usually
what happens but we were too stubborn.”
Thanks to his years spent at the fortress, a willing family and having a heritage carpenter and architectural friends on board, Donovan knew what should and had to be done. The floors are unpainted with hooked rugs, there is a false fireplace since they were common to that period and pretty much everything is handmade. Unlike today’s homes, just about everything in the home comes from the local area.
“This house is 100 per cent sustainable,” says Donovan. “Everything at the time was made in Ingonish except for the window glass, probably, so the ironworks, the doors are all handmade. The floors are hemlock, much pine is used as well and the original shingles are still up between the false dormer.”
While many of today’s materials need to be replaced after a few years of use, the materials used in the Donovan house were made to last and Donovan says that’s an important lesson for people today to learn, especially if they’re trying to reduce their footprint.
“The reservation and restoration of this early 19th century house is a model for sustainable development, especially at a time when one third of Nova Scotia landfills contain the debris of older houses.”
Donovan estimates conservatively that about 1,000 people with the surname Donovan can trace their origins back to the house. When his grandchildren visit during the summer, they are the eighth generation of the family to stay in the home and he hopes it will host further generations after that.
He hopes the restoration will inspire others to repair and restore rather than replace and destroy. Donovan recounts the story in an academic essay in the Nashwaak Review, https:// independent.academia.edu/ KENDONOVAN and says he has been receiving positive feedback for his efforts.
“It’s a different way of thinking. Automatically you don’t throw out the old, you say ‘is there any way that we can work this or rework this for aesthetic and cultural reasons, for sustainable reasons?’ “It’s just a different way to look at something. It’s a totally different approach.”
“My wife and I supported each other and she especially supported me and many of her family did and my family. Some people said ‘put a match to it’ because that’s usually what happens but we were too stubborn.”
Ken Donovan