HOLIDAY HOUSE TOUR
Doors to A’burg homes open
Shereen Sabessar wondered for years what the inside of the old house on Front Road she drives by each day looks like. Saturday, she found out.
Sabessar and more than 1,000 other members of the public discovered the insides of 671 Front Rd. and seven other Amherstburg homes during the town’s annual River Lights Holiday House Tour event over the weekend.
“I’m really glad we have the opportunity to come in and see this,” Sabessar said while admiring the 138-year-old house’s renovated kitchen and original cornice moulding. “They ’ve done a marvellous job with the space.” Now in its sixth year, the event draws people from near and far to take off their boots and investigate various homes around Amherstburg. Organizers have no trouble finding homeowners interested in opening their doors to strangers for the weekend, said Anne Rota, the town’s manager of tourism and culture.
“In the beginning we pretty much had to beg people and talk them into being on the house tour,” Rota said. “Now we actually have homeowners contacting us. We’re so grateful they open up their homes.”
For $25 a ticket, individuals had entry to every house on the list, as well as a wine tasting at Vivace Estate Winery, where several holiday dresses designed by students in the design technician program at St. Clair College were on display. Every location had been decorated by local businesses with ribbons, garlands, ornaments and more. Deanna McDowall, owner of the three-storey lake view home Sabessar so often admired, said she and her husband, David, were happy to welcome guests. “It’s a beautiful piece of architecture, and we love to show it,” said McDowall, who stood in the kitchen answering questions from curious ticket holders. “We can be working in the front yard and people will drive up and ask us about the house because it does stand out in the community.”
Built in 1880 by lumber baron Thomas Ouellette, the house has solid lumber walls. “Rumour has it he liked to have a good party in this house, so I think he’d be happy with what’s going on today,” said McDowall.
The house was leased out as a seed farm in the 1920s before being abandoned for part of the 1930s and becoming a boarding house in the 1940s, McDowall said. In 1947, Raymond Stone, a Second World War veteran from whom the McDowalls purchased the home, bought it, and lived in it until 1999. When McDowall and her husband purchased the home in 2000, it had radiator heating, and only on the first floor. Since then, they have updated the heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical systems, while maintaining the structure’s original style.
“We want to keep it period looking,” said McDowall, joking she and her husband are in year 18 of a five-year renovation. “We couldn’t do conventional heating because it would mean boxing in corners and cutting into the cornice moulding for cold air returns.” Instead, the couple installed one heating unit in the basement, and a second on the third floor.
Having always lived in homes almost a century old, McDowall said she and David knew they wanted to purchase the house the minute they stepped inside.
“This was always the house we drove by and wanted to see inside,” McDowall said.
Heritage designation protects it from ever being demolished. Proceeds from the tour went to the Belle Vue House restoration project, and to the River Lights Gingerbread House, which offers free holiday activities for children and families until Jan. 4.