I’m sure that many readers are familiar with the long vacant and derelict house at the s.w. corner of Riverside Drive East and Aylmer.
As the years have gone on, the house has been getting worse and worse. We’ll low and behold I drove past it, this past Saturday and it was long gone. Amazing when you look at the site now to imagine there used to be a house on it, as the site is extremely tiny.
I bet that lot will stay empty for a long time.
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Finally !!!! everytime i was stopped at the lights…. all i did was stare at that house….. and wondered how beautiful it must of been once when it had alot of love….. wonder how old it was? do you know?
I can’t beleive how long she lasted!! I’ve always thought the same things you did Lilly, and was always curious as to what inside looked like. Did it still have all it’s beautiful trim? Was there a fireplace? What did the banister look like?
At least the yellow place behind it finally has a view!
As for age…..I’m gonna shoot for 115-120yrs.
Thanks for the post Andrew!
Not sure but I thought this house belonged to the Maroun family (of the Ambassador Bridge Co. fame) st one time? I could be wrong.
Only in Windsor do you see boarded up old houses with a spectacular view, sitting empty. Any where else that land would be prime real estate.
I saw it last year and the place was in worse shape than ol’ slumpy. If you had seen it from the back, between the next house, you would have seen the whole wall buckling. That whole side was ready to collapse onto the next house. There were holes on the roof (probably from a fire?) where water was getting in and making it worse. It was structurally unsound and beyond repair. Glad it’s gone. Thanks to whoever had the decency to finally pay for the demo.
i dont think that Mr. Maroun owned this…. that man had enough money back in the day he could of had a house like willistead lol anyways i guess it does nhot matter anymore….. everything old is gone in windsor ! glad my house is still alive and kicking at 102 yrs old xoxox
I guess it had to go… sad, but derelict. I would estimate that house at about 120 years old as well. Timber balloon framing and blacksmith nails.
I don’t understand why you didn’t post a pic of the empty lot?
Enjoy your site, btw. Thanks!
Too much snow. You can’t see anything, in fact the lot is so small, it doesn’t even look like it would be big enough to hold a house. 🙂
I do believe it belonged to the Maroun family when Matty was growing up. I remember reading a story on it a while back and how he used to pay a few cents to take the ferry across the river as a boy.
I think I read that it was going to be sold for back taxes at the city aution at the end of 2010 but at the last minute the owner came fwd and paid the back taxes. He was told that it would have to be demolished because it was unsafe.
My Dad lived there in early 70’s, it was a rooming/flop/party house. I remember it being trashed back then. I believe a fellow named Phelps owned it then.
I used to live in that house we lived up on the top floor of it. We moved there back in the late 70’s after the fire broke out at the other corner up on Alymer and Chatham when it took the life of Mrs Cook. And all three houses that were on each corner from riverside up to university were own by the same owner’s. And each home met the same fate as the last there were all destroyed by fire.
No the family who owned the house also own’s the house at the corner of Catoraqui and Glenngary across the street from the meat place. And the son still lives there I am not correct on the spelling but it was Hyjasi or something along them line’s. The family was later charged with some fraud and theft of carpeting if I remember correctly.
Andrew, I have a friend who managed to get into the basement…but then discovered that there was no way up to the ground floor 😀 He said that the basement was terribly boring (so now you know what a 1/4 of the interior looked like :))