Many old homes remain in Oakville’s historic district, but most of the grand estates owned by the town’s trailblazers have long been subdivided, carved up into smaller plots to house a growing population.
Reminders of the estate days can be found, though, in some surprising places. Just ask Susie Griffin, owner of a home on Wedgewood Drive, a short hop north of Lakeshore Road in Oakville’s east end.
The 7,000-square-foot home was once a barn on a massive lakeside estate owned by Herbert Cox. His father, George Cox, was a financier and senator who became one of Canada’s first millionaires.
In 2001, the Griffin family moved back to Canada from Britain, where Susie had developed an appreciation for architecture with a story to tell. “We had seen every single house in a very wide price range in Oakville,” she recalls. “And I walked into this house and I said: ‘This is it. I know this is our house.’
“This house to me has always had some kind of richness to it,” she adds. “There’s been a lot of activity here. Life has happened in this house.”
From the outside, it’s hard to tell that it was once a barn. The structure was transformed into a home circa 1960 and over the years has been renovated to make it the showpiece it is today. The first order of business for the Griffins was to get rid of some of the modernization efforts from the sixties that were more dated and strange than historic.
“There was a cactus garden and a sunken hot tub in the basement,” Griffin recalls. “And a weird open staircase attached to the wall that sort of swooped down.”
Fake wooden beams were removed from the kitchen and paint stripped from the real ones. Griffin wanted to expose the broad-axe marks on the massive pine originals. She had new cabinets built in the kitchen, but left a split-level door of the kind often seen on barns. She believes the door may have come from somewhere in the original structure. At one time, she began to strip it, too, but gave up after discovering nine layers of paint. This left a multicoloured patina, which shows as a beautiful artistic feature rather than the abandoned paint-stripping effort it was.
Most of the renovation fun was yet to come. After living in the house for six years, the family rented it out when they moved to the U.S. When they came back to Oakville, three years later, they were at a crossroads – they could tear down or really renovate.
“There was a brief moment when we thought of demolishing it,” Griffin says. “But then I thought, we’re not so much owners of a house like this, as custodians. When something has been standing this long …”
Thus began the second renovation, which would cost nearly $1-million. Stoneshore Group, a family-owned Oakville custom home builder, was brought in for a radical reshape that would strip things down to the bone.
“When I saw it, I said, ‘Oh my,’” recounts Stoneshore’s Peter Marit, who collaborated on the project with his wife, Terri. He says most renovations are rarely straightforward, but this one presented particular challenges.
“It was difficult to follow what we put on paper because we got curves thrown at us. So we had to keep revising as we went through the project.”
The first surprise was that one of the four massive foundation posts had to be replaced, which they did by finding an original barn beam, cutting it down, and using the remaining wood to add dormer windows on the front of the house. Then there were the walnuts in the walls, deposited by generations of squirrels. When they pulled the cedar siding from the exterior, “walnuts poured out all over the place,” Peter says.
They completely remade the front of the house, as well as the second floor. “The whole top came right off,” Terri says. “Upstairs we were down to the beams.”
They moved the master bedroom downstairs, into a space that included a fireplace, and added a luxurious en suite bath. They reconfigured and enlarged the four bedrooms upstairs by knocking out walls and building out over what had been a deck. Demolishing walls on such an old structure led to a few sleepless nights. But in the end they achieved success.
One of the most distinctive features of the home is that the original structural beams are exposed throughout. “Maybe some people wouldn’t like exposed beams in their bathroom,” Griffin laughs. “But I think it’s beautiful. We wanted to see as much original beam as possible.”
Other treasures unearthed in the reno, such as wooden nails and pegs – even horseshoes – have been artfully placed and add to the décor.
Griffin credits the Marits with “working miracles,” especially with such modern amenities as the sound system and central vacuum. “I didn’t think they’d be able to do what they did.”
It is not known exactly when the barn was built. Existing histories of the area report that Herbert Cox purchased the land north of his lakeside estate some time between 1909 and 1914. The estate included a polo field and a horse breeding operation that was internationally known. A preserved polo stable sits on a property next door.
When the Griffins put in a backyard pool, they ran into other remnants of the old days, such as a concrete ramp leading to the original split-level barn door, which still remains in the basement. They also uncovered the foundations of a small out building.
A cemetery next to the house is watched over by towering black locusts, which shed a blanket of white flowers in the spring. Owned and maintained by Oakville, it dates from 1833, providing a trace of the Harris family, which records show owned the land in 1832. The cemetery has markers for two Harris children and someone named Mahetabel Fish, as well as other unmarked graves.
As much as Griffin loves her home, the family plans to put it up for sale after Christmas, according to Oakville realtor Alex Irish.
“It’s time to move on,” Griffin says, now that her four children are getting ready to establish lives of their own. She hopes to sell to a buyer who shares her love of character-rich properties and appreciation for history. She would be sad to see her beloved luxury barn torn down.
Special to The Globe and Mail