There were times when Jim Slattery asked himself, “What have I done?”
He had bought a wreck of a house and had decided he was going to restore it to its former glory. An electrician by trade he had skills but wasn’t quite sure what he was getting himself into.
He was going through a difficult time in his life and he somehow knew that if he could fix that broken down house he would also rebuild himself.
Slattery liked coming to Creemore on his motorcycle. He said he would sit there at Norma’s café and watch the ebb and flow of the village.
It was his brother who brought the listing for the old farmhouse located on 6/7 Sideroad, on the back way to Creemore, to his attention.
“It was a total wreck,” said Slattery of the uneven floors, crumbling chimneys, rusted roof, rickety kitchen cabinets and leaky pipes that were causing mold. “It was destroyed, a total disaster.”
But the Gothic Victorian house, with its distinctive high pitch roof, had good bones and the old brickwork was sound. Most importantly the house had a good energy.
He was dating Susan Ross, who lived in Barrie at the time. When they rode their motorcycles to take a look at the house they saw that the mailbox read, ‘Jim and Susan’. A sign of good things to come.
It wasn’t an impulse purchase.
Slattery was determined to make the house a home once more.
He had a house in Queensville that was proving challenging to sell, so his conditional offer on the old house was uncertain. When an unconditional offer came in, Slattery told the real estate agent to send over the papers. He’d sign right away.
After a long closing, he took possession in 2011. They didn’t realize right away that it had river access – another pleasant surprise.
Over the next two years, Slattery and Ross, with help from family and friends, worked to make the house liveable. Ross recalls that time – having no running water or electricity – with fond memories because it simplified life in many ways, even when they had to clean up in a public washroom.
For two years Slattery slept in a tent in what is now the dining room.
“My children thought I’d lost my mind,” said Slattery.
But his hunch was right. Through the process of restoring the old house, he was healing. He dug the main floor down to the dirt and rebuilt it with salvaged flooring. During that time he kept a small pile of groceries on a table covered in a cloth to protect it from dust and debris.
Whenever the question cropped up, “What have I done?” He reminded himself, “I am going to bring this house back.”
During a spring visit, Jerry Jordan returned to the home for the first time since his mother sold it in the 1980s. He sits with Slattery at the kitchen table located in the same spot that the Jordan family had their meals.
When the Jordans had the property located on the south half of Lot 7 Concession 4, the 100-acre farm plot was intact. They kept 25-30 cattle and crops, some of which they had to cross the river to tend. On the property there are fenceposts the Jordans dug by hand, the stone foundation of the old barn, field stone pile, fruit trees, and a rhubarb patch.
Jordan has many happy memories of growing up on the farm with his father Bill, who was known for his strength, and his mother Kate, who was known for her wit. There were five children living in a four-bedroom house, after a small room was added at the end of the upstairs hallway, which was later converted into a bathroom when plumbing was installed.
An original narrow staircase leads to the second floor. Jordan admits he once threw his brother over the railing and down the narrow staircase but luckily his father was there to catch him.
He remembers doing his homework by the warm glow of the coal oil lamps before electricity was installed. He said the electric light felt cold and too bright in comparison. Jordan recalls sitting at that table when lightning hit the house and a plume of fire burst out of the outlet across the kitchen, leaving his ears ringing.
He and Slattery talk about where the doors and windows were located, and where the wood stoves and Quebec heater used to sit.
The Jordans bought the property around 1943, and years later parcels have since been sold off to create lots along the river, leaving about 14 acres with the house.
Slattery said when restoring the house he was very aware that he didn’t want it to look like a Home Depot house. Because all the trim and baseboards had been removed he took steps to recreate them as best he could.
By Year 6 the house was habitable and Susan moved in. By Year 8 Slattery refers to the house as reasonably done. As a finishing touch, Slattery made almost 700 pickets to build a stylized picket fence across the front of the house, and had a friend make a wrought iron house design to be mounted on the Juliette balcony.
If Slattery has any words of wisdom for young people today, he urges them to see the value in restoring an old house and buying used materials as a way of making a home. His advice: Focus on one room and make it really nice, and go from there.