For sale: house that helped birth Canada

Halifax mansion housed a Father of Confederation

HALIFAX• The meticulously restored Halifax mansion of a Father of Confederation is up for sale — for less than the price of a typical semidetached house in Toronto.

Jonathan McCully, a journalist, politician and lawyer, helped plot the creation of the new nation of Canada from the stone residence that is now being offered for sale for $785,000.

“You can imagine the conversations and the writing that went on in that house, with him writing the prose of Confederation against the people who were writing against Confederation,” says Halifax historian Blair Beed.

The house has another claim to fame: It once housed the offices of Salter Street Films, the now-defunct television and film production company behind, among other things, the sexy international sci-fi TV series Lexx.

The three-storey Brunswick Street house, built in the 1850s, is 3,667 square feet in size.

At the time it was built, that stretch of Brunswick Street was an upscale neighbourhood.

The four-bedroom home has an updated kitchen and four bathrooms, views of Halifax harbour and parking for up to six cars.

Through his writing and law career, McCully was a fierce advocate for Confederation and spent his post-Confederation life as a senator and judge, according to Beed.

The home’s future was once uncertain, the historian noted. Although it was designated a historic site in the 1970s, the provincial government “did a lousy job” at preserving the mansion.

The mansion was almost too far gone when Paul Donovan and his brother Michael swooped in, in the early 1990s, and acquired the house to use as office space for their Salter Street Films.

“That house was derelict, it had been derelict for a long time ... it was crumbling,” said Paul Donovan. “But it was really pretty, it had very good bones.”

He bought the house from the city for $2, but he estimates he and his brother spent about $500,000 on renovations.

After the film company went out of business, the house was sold to Jason Ross, the current owner.

Ross said he believes Edgar Billings Jr., the man who built the house, should get all the credit for its beauty and that McCully bought the house“opportunistically” for below-market value.

While much of the restoration legwork was done by the Donovans, Ross said he also carried out some renovations.