St. Rose and Riverside Dr. Then and Now

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• The old House on the property was old and decrepit, I was told that the old farmhouse was build around 1790; It’s hard to believe there were houses that old in the city.

  This house was designed to take advantage of the water view across the road; The Design for the style of the house was inspired as a combination of Georgian Colonel and English Country Style Homes. I think it’s a nice house, to bad the property wasn’t bigger for this house.

• 1790? I doubt it would be that old. In the war of 1812, the Americans came down to the Canadian side and looted and burned all the buildings to the ground except the Duff Baby House, which one of the American generals used as a command post. Then, it would be a couple decades before people trusted the area as secure again and came back to farm it--if you were a farmer and had concerns about all the women in your household getting raped by invading American soldiers, you'd probably want to know the area was fairly secure and reasonably protected by the local British government before making it your home and the nearest British garrison was where, Amherstberg, which probably take a day for soldiers to come to the rescue. I'm thinking Andrew's 150 year estimate is accurate.

• I've driven by the new house many times. I guess compared to many replacement homes on the Drive, it is about as good as could be expected. It's not like some of these homes that belong in Florida. I can't blame the former owners, who probably made a killing selling the property. With these newer homes, people want maximum space and minimum lawn. Similar thing happens in the DC suburbs. Old 50s era ranches are torn down and replaced with homes 3 times the size (and price). Gotta like the 4 car garage though - nice! Look at it this way, that little bit of lawn won't need fertilizers or extensive cutting, so it's environmentally friendly.

• I know the fellow who bought the old house in the mid 80's. He did a lot of "un-renovating" to get at as much of the original house as possible. He told me that it was once used as a Coach Stop and one of the features he uncovered was a brick wall in the original kitchen complete with a serving window to what would have been a "common" room. The blue house behind it belonged to him as well and once stood on Wyandotte St. E. around the corner of St. Rose between the Church and the A&P parking lot. Part of the deal in selling that property was moving the house to it's present location - so I'm assuming the land it is now sitting on was once part of the "Old House" property.

• Just because this isn't a cookie cutter house doesn't make it right. My wife and I drive by this house often. It is cold. It is always dark. It is lifeless. You never see anyone around. We jokingly call it a bunker. All it is missing is a wall around it. For all it's surface area, I don't think they could fit anymore grey or beige on it.

  I clearly get the impression that the people within have no interst in being part of the community. They are in it for themselves. They built their castle without regard for fitting in with nearby homes. Oh, and I hope the neibours didn't mind that they blotted out the sun (and probably some of their view of the river).

  I hope they make the millions they are looking for when they put it up for sale when the market gets better.

  PS. I don't remember the old house, but I've heard told it had a salon run out of the back.

• Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste. This house grosses me out. For one thing, its a great example of a structure that is poorly integrated with its surroundings. It might have been bearable if it had a broad expanse of space all around (the better to keep it far,far away) but as it stands it appears bloated, claustrophobic, and dangerous, like its gonna swallow up the street. My house could probably fit inside the garage. Has as much charm as a Humvee done up in desert camouflage - a group of rectangular blocks huddled together and dressed up with roof peaks,columned porticos, arched doorways and big chimneys. A Sears catalogue pre-fab on steroids if I ever saw one.

• Although the house that stood there might not have been built in the 1790s it was most likely built after 1812 but before the 1850s.
  It is clearly of French Canadian design with the two chimneys on opposite sides of the house. I would take a wild guess and place it bewteen 1815 and 1845.

  It disgusts me to see it was torn down to make that dank beast of a house.

• Sadly this city has a reputation of razing old buildings more than any other city in Canada. When you travel to other Ontario cities like Stratford they seem to keep the
  old buildings which gives their community a warm charm. Windsor is a beautiful City and
  we have a gem in our water front parks. I realize that we can't save every building however I do wish that we would save more of the structures that are sound.