Description of Historic Place

Elmhirst House is a modest two and one-half storey red brick house in a landscaped campus setting. Its basic hip-roofed mass is enlivened in typical Queen Anne Revival style with an engaged octagonal tower on one side of a projecting front porch and a projecting gabled form on the other side. As a middle-class house its sides and back are less elaborate. Elmhirst House was built in 1896 and moved to its present location in 1992; the two sympathetic houses next to it were moved at the same time. The three buildings form a small residential grouping in the mixed institutional context of the Ontario Staff College, Correctional Services Canada.

Heritage Value

Elmhirst House is a “Recognized” Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations, and its architectural and environmental values.

Historical value:
Elmhirst House is an example of the evolution of Canadian policy and practice in heritage conservation in the built environment. At one stage in this evolution, relocating historically interesting buildings was a form of heritage conservation frequently resorted to. Elmhirst House and its companion houses show this approach applied to representative buildings of an expanding middle class as distinct from rare or extremely significant buildings. In terms of local history, the building is an example of the architectural culture of Kingston in the late 19th Century; of the development of middle class residential areas at the edges of Queen’s University; and of the eventual growth of the university into those same areas in the form of new institutional buildings and student housing.

Architectural value:
Aesthetically the house is a very good example of the Queen Anne Revival style, successfully assembling its features to achieve the “sweetness and light” sometimes spoken of as characteristic of the style. Although interior renovations have affected the original layout, functionally, it follows a proven, conventional domestic plan. The house was built using very good quality materials and craftsmanship. The design is known to be the work of the prolific local architect Arthur Ellis.

Environmental value:
The Elmhirst house was moved to its present location from a more dense urban setting however its
connection to its new grounds is sufficiently like the designed relationship with its original site to retain some
meaning, particularly given its relationship with the other two houses which were moved at the same time. The
larger setting is a very mixed campus of various building types, styles and scales, within which the three brick
houses form a compatible sub-grouping. Although its function is not really known within the neighbourhood,
the house is visually distinctive and thus conspicuous in its local context.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of Elmhirst House that should be respected include:

The complex roofscape, particularly the faceted two-tiered cone with ball finial that caps the engaged
corner tower;

The engaged tower, projecting gabled bay and prominent front porch;

The rock-faced limestone foundation and ashlar banding;

The decorative carvings at the stone lintels;

The ornamental red brick patterns and banding, and the brickwork swags;

The window form, size and glazing pattern, especially:
In the tower, double hung windows with transom and the stone banding as lintel and sill-course; and

In the projecting gable, twin double hung windows set within a brick relieving arch.

The wooden ornament in the gable;

The tall chimneys and expressed chimney pots;

The fundamentally symmetrical interior plan with substantial stair hall and formal rooms; and

The surviving original interior woodwork and plaster ornament.