A different kind of moving day
Farmhouse older than Canada to move to make way for subdivision
KITCHENER — An 1864 stone farmhouse will be moved a few dozen metres to allow development to proceed in a new subdivision, under a plan being considered by Kitchener’s heritage committee.
The Grant House rose up in the midst of productive farmland, but now sits at the end of a long lane at 710 Huron Rd. on a 5.35-hectare (13.2-acre) property on the edge of creeping suburban development.
That development will soon surround the house, and is prompting an unusual plan to move the house, at a cost of almost $500,000, so that a subdivision can grow up around it.
The farmhouse’s location creates problems for grading the subdivision and makes it more difficult to use the land efficiently.
So the plan is to move the farmhouse a short distance onto one of the 44 lots along the subdivision’s future cul-de-sac, renovate it and sell it along with the other homes in the subdivision.
“By relocating it slightly, they’re able to gain some individual lots,” said Leon Bensason, the city’s co-ordinator of cultural heritage. “They’re making more efficient use of the land.”
The move will involve only the original 1,200-square-foot farmhouse — more recent additions will be demolished.
The home will shift to a corner lot that’s big enough to accommodate a garage and a modern addition, and will likely be a focal point of the new subdivision, Bensason said.
The developer, Freure Homes, “has been working with us from Day 1,” Bensason said. “They’ve shown a commitment to conserving the house and they are fully vested in keeping the building and rehabilitating it.”
It would be only the second time that a heritage house in Kitchener has been moved to make way for a subdivision. The 1856 Donnenwerth House on Gravel Ridge Trail was moved in 2006 to make way for the Eby Estates subdivision in a painstaking process that took two days and required the construction of a 500-metre stretch of road just for the move.
Farmer Robert Grant bought the Grant House property from George McStewart around 1866. The farmhouse is believed to have been built two years earlier, possibly when the Grants were tenants on the property. The Grant family owned the property until 1934.
The Grant House is significant because it’s one of seven stone houses built between 1850 and 1870 within a few kilometres of each other, in the southwest part of the city in what was once an enclave of Scottish settlers. That settlement is unique in Kitchener, and tells a particular story in the city’s history, Bensason said.
“It has the telltale signs — the large stones and the craftsmanship — of Scottish settlers,” in an area where German-Mennonite settlers were dominant, Bensason said.
The city is proposing to protect the Grant House in two ways: with a notice of intention to designate the building as a heritage property — formal designation would come after the house has been moved and its legal description changed — and with a heritage covenant and a letter of credit to cover the cost of moving the house.
The city’s heritage committee will consider the intent to designate and the heritage covenant on June 6.
Bensason said he’s encouraged that developers are willing to work with the city to save these unusual heritage properties.
“It’s a beautiful property. I think it will add tremendous value to the subdivision.”