One of Wallaceburg's oldest houses will soon face the wrecking ball.
During Monday night's council meeting, municipal staff recommended that the “The Steinhoff House,” located at 595 Wallace St., be taken off the Municipal Heritage List in order to speed up the demolition process. Anyone who owns a house that is listed on the heritage register must give council 60 days written notice of their intention to demolish the building.
The Steinhoff House was built in 1858 and was Wallaceburg's first brick residential structure. It was once a prime example of gothic revival architecture, however, neglect and frequent changes in ownership over the last decade has left the building in an extremely derelict state.
The property changed hands in 2005, 2006, 2008 and in 2009 when it was purchased by an out of town owner. A year later it was added to the Municipal Heritage Registry due to its historical significance. By 2015, the building was in such bad shape due to parts of it collapsing and a plumbing system in a state of disrepair, that the owner was issued an order to renovate it. Those renovations never happened and the house was placed on the market in 2017. While it was for sale, the structure continued to be neglected and the property was left with $6,000 in unpaid back taxes.
Sharon Burggraaf, a representative from the company who purchased the property in early 2019, spoke to council on Monday night. According to Burggraaf, when the house was purchased, the deterioration of the structure was irreversible and have become home to trespassers.
"The building was, in our belief, dangerous to the community and beyond repair beyond any feasible financial parameters," said Burggraaf. "Since purchasing the building we have gone into the unoccupied units and safely filled a 40-yard roll-off bin with garbage, left behind belongings and countless evidence of illegal drug paraphernalia."
Burggraaf presented council with over a dozen photos showing how derelict the building has become over the years, including boarded up and broken windows, holes in the floors and the walls, destroyed sidewalks and vulgar graffiti painted around the inside of the building.
In April of this year, Burggraaf turned in her request to demolish the building. Burggraaf finished her deputation by saying the demolition of the property would allow room for the municipality to move forward with building a "new and exciting" project in Wallaceburg.
However, the Chatham-Kent Heritage committee was on hand to give a deputation as well, one that painted a different picture of the house and its importance to the municipality.
Committee Chair Chris Williams shared a little bit about the building's rich history and made a plea for council not to go ahead with the demolishing of it. Williams explained that the house was built by Captain James Steinhoff, Wallaceburg's first mayor. Williams also credited Steinhoff as being one of the most influential people in Wallaceburg's history and explained that he turned the area from a rural community into an industrial one.
"Not only was he the first mayor, he kind of built Wallaceburg," said Williams. "He was a shipbuilder, he started off with two young cows, which he traded for 100 acres of land in Chatham-Kent. Then he built that up into a shipbuilding business that would run up and down the Sydenham [River]"
Instead, Williams requested that the house be upgraded from being on the Heritage List to becoming a designated heritage building. Properties that are designated face much more restrictions and protection than those that are just listed.
595 Wallace Street in Wallaceburg (Photo courtesy Sharon Burggraaf)
"A history is a huge benefit to a community. A history that you can reach out and touch, that is tactile, that is there, not just written on a screen or in a book, something that you can actually see and feel and wander by is super important," said Williams.
Ryan Jacques, a planner with the municipality, presented council with his recommendation to remove the property from the register and proceeded with the demolition. Although he spoke on the importance of heritage buildings, he echoed Burggraaf's concerns that keeping The Steinhoff House in place would hinder any future plans for redevelopment and revitalizing the community's waterfront.
"Over time, incremental losses of buildings in this area have really eroded the potential for revitalization of this historic neighbourhood," he said.
Wallaceburg-area Councillor Carmen McGregor reflected on growing up in the community and remembered the house being in beautiful shape. However, she agreed that at this point in time, it would be in the best interest of the community to proceed with the demolition process.
"It is a real shame," she said. "I'm sure in its day it was just fantastic and beautiful inside. Somehow we almost need to be able to get to those homes before they're ever left to become such a downfall in the community. I know if it's left on the registry and the demolition is denied, it's just going to sit there again and it's not going to be restored."
Councillor Aaron Hall took a moment to recognize the importance of the house and its significance to the community of Wallaceburg. He said he spoke with the owners of the property to try and meet somewhere in the middle to preserve parts of the building's history if the demolition goes through.
"They're very open and I'm very encouraged to hear, they're willing to...try and preserve some of the pieces of the property when they go in there," Hall explained. "Whether it's working with anyone interested in keeping some of those artifacts or something that might be deemed to be preserved, I thought that's a very encouraging thing."
Ultimately, the heritage committee did not get what they were hoping for. The motion to remove the building from the heritage list and proceed with the demolition passed 14-4, with councillors Bondy, Wright, Ceccacci and Authier voting against it.
The Steinhoff House (Photo courtesy Chatham-Kent Heritage Committee)