A grand old home is treated to a new mask... of acrylic stucco. I can imagine the sales pitch of "adding a layer of styrofoam to cut your heating bills" and "maintenance free exterior finish". Rubbish. The brick work was in fine shape, perhaps in need of pointing, and the color, texture and visual interest of the historic fabric of this building is now lost. 

I had a hard time not contacting the owners to question why on earth they were ruining such a great house. Just because a monochromatic blanket of off-white stupidity improves the horrible box on the rear of the house does not justify the irreversible damage wrought by another builder chasing a profit.

This building actually uses the word "castle" in it's name. For a brand new building, it wound up looking for all the world like they robbed the salvage yard for used building materials. The use of different colored roofing and siding materials is baffling, and the one material used throughout is the world's most boring grey vinyl siding. This material even covers an enormous wall section at the rear of the building, (it is already falling off!) and the lack of windows in that wall is puzzling... it faces the lake, and the best views! The worst views in the neighbourhood are looking at this building.