Cottesmore Hall

43.964539°N 78.151497°W / 43.964539; -78.151497

Cottesmore Hall
General information
Town or city	Cobourg, Ontario
Year(s) built	1910 (1910)
Demolished	1974 (1974)
Owner	Wallace H. Rowe
Design and construction
Architecture firm	Rutan & Russell

Cottesmore Hall was a mansion in Coubourg, Ontario. The house was built in 1910 as a summer home for Wallace Hurtte Rowe (1861–1919), the founder and president of the Pittsburgh Steel Company. Cottesmore Hall was one of several mansions built in Cobourg by wealthy American families, who in the late 19th and early 20th centuries made the town a summer colony. Rowe hired Pittsburgh architects Rutan & Russell, who designed a Colonial Revival house clad in white stucco. The Rowe family owned the home until 1949, when the property was expropriated by the provincial government for use as a home for wayward girls. The house was demolished in 1974.

History

Cobourg as a summer colony

The emergence of Cobourg as a wealthy summer colony was the product of the town's transportation links and industrial development. In the In the 1830s, the harbour of Cobourg was refurbished, and the following decade, a ferry was established between Cobourg and Rochester, New York. In 1854, the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway opened, and two years later, the Grand Trunk Railway opened, with a stop in Cobourg.^[1]

Prior to the American Civil War, several iron deposits had been discovered in Northumberland Country, at Marmora and Blairton. In the late 1860s, Pennsylvania businessmen George K. Shoenberger and William Chambliss acquired control of the mine at Marmora and of the C&P Railway, and merged the operations to form the Cobourg, Peterborough, and Mamora Railway and Mining Company. Shoenberger, Chambliss, and their associates visited Ontario periodically and worked from Cobourg. Over time, they began bringing family and friends with them on their trips. In 1873, Schoenberger and Chambliss built the Arlington Hotel in Cobourg as a base for the group of Americans who had begun spending time in Cobourg.^[2]

The hall

Wallace Hurtte Rowe (1861–1919)

Wallace Rowe purchased his property in Cobourg in 1904. He acquired the property from Vincent Howard, a Methodist minister, whose wife was a descendant of Benedict Arnold.^[3] The name "Cottesmore Hall" came from Cottesmore Avenue. The name of the street itself came from a home occupied by William Weller, which sat approximately where the Cottesmore Hall stables were built.^[4] Rowe hired as architects Rutan & Russell of Pittsburgh, and began construction in 1908.

The iron gates on Kingston Road were made by the Canada Foundry Company and cost several thousand dollars. The gates opened onto a Telford road lined with large maples. The formal garden on the property was laid out in a double Maltese cross pattern bordered by perennials. The bulk of perennials were roses provided by Sam McGredy in Portadown, County Armagh.^[5]

After building the house, Wallace Rowe became an important member of the community in Cobourg. He gave generously to St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, founded the local golf club, and provided the hospital its first X-ray equipment.^[6]

Expropriation

George Harrison Dunbar, the minister for reform institutions, proposed to the minister of public works, George Doucett, to acquire the property for use as a home for wayward girls, which he claimed was needed urgently. The government had acquired Bagnall Hall (of Willis McCook), the estate to the west of Cottesmore in 1940, and Strathmore (of George M. Clarke), the estate to the east of Cottesmore in 1945. In 1947, the Ontario government approached Mrs Rowe with a request to purchase the estate. Mrs Rowe declined, and the government assured her they would not expropriate. Then, in 1948, the government told her she would have to sell, and in response, she asked to keep the property until her death. Finally, on 22 December 1948, the government took expropriation action. The government paid $43,000 for the property and Mrs Rowe was given six months to vacate the house. However, the following year, Dunbar's successor William Ernest Hamilton decided the property was unsuitable for this function due to its proximity to a major highway. Instead, the government proposed to turn it into a hospital for aged mental patients. Although the Rowes did not appeal, the family was angry over the affair. One family member said, "what a way to treat a fine American family after 42 years' summer residence in Canada. We cry for U.S. tourists – we get the very best – and we throw them out to make way for a home for wayward girls which has not even yet been occupied."^[7]

Gallery

• 
  Aerial of the estate
• 
  Main floor plan
• 
  Entrance gate
• 
  Front of the house
• 
  Rear of the house
• 
  Sun room
• 
  Main hall
• 
  Dining room
• 
  The stable and garage, which survives
• 
  Clay tennis court
• 
  Formal garden
• 
  Artificial pond

References

1. Marsha Ann Tate, "Of Iron and Ozone: The History of the American Summer Colony in Cobourg, Ontario," Juniata Voices, (vol. 13, 2012), 81-2.
2. Tate, 82-3.
3. Edith Kerr MacDonald, "Old homes and distinguished visitors," in Edwin C. Guillet, Cobourg, 1798–1948, (Goodfellow Printing Company, 1948), 195.
4. Guillet, 35.
5. T. S. Hall-Abell, "The gardens of Cottesmore Hall, Cobourg, Ontario," The Canadian Horticulturalist, (June 1914), 149.
6. "Expropriation – for wayward girls," The Financial Post, (5 August 1950), 2.
7. "Expropriation."