I love old houses, and thoughtfully designed and built new houses. So you can imagine my disappointment at witnessing the destruction of a fine old local yellow brick farmhouse so that a rather uninspired and oddly formed new house could take its place.

The builder of the new house has the audacity to call it a "farmhouse" on his website - well it certainly is on a farm, but it's no farmhouse in the traditional, memory inspiring "Christmas on the farm" way. Not by a country mile.

The loss of thoughtful buildings is not restricted to the urban landscape, if anything it's more widespread in the countryside around our cities. Bank barns and proper farm houses are lost to the enlargement and "big business-fying" of agriculture, as more and more farmland comes under the tillage of bigger and bigger operations. In this case it appears the desire for a new house blinded the owners to the beauty and enduring style of what they had. Perhaps they never appreciated it to begin with?

​Sadly, these houses that have stood the test of time, are replaced with buildings that I dare say won't weather the years as well, and certainly don't catch the eye in the same way, nor invite us to enjoy a summer evening on the front porch. A serviceable brick exterior and slate roof is replaced with fake stone and asphalt shingles. Proper form and proportion disappear and fake dormers and illogical exterior details abound on the new. There are better ways to replace an old house if necessary.

Put aside the aesthetic and loss of history and think about the true cost of replacing a grand old house with a mediocre one. Perhaps it was cheaper to build new than fix the old (doubtful) but at what cost environmentally?

​It is obviously being unceremoniously used as landfill at the back of the farm, little being recycled. The embodied energy that went into building this old house was low in comparison to the new house, and a lovely and character filled older home is gone and replaced with something  ho-hum at best. A drive in the country to admire the landscape is now not as rewarding when I take this route, and I suspect other old house lovers feel the same way.

A rather important element in the construction of a new house is the very first step - design. In the not too distant past home design followed set rules of form and proportion, and the result was homes that made sense to the eye and were pleasing in form. The plans may have come from an architect, an experienced builder or even a catalogue or pattern book. Certainly there were designers who thought outside the box so to speak, but they did so in logical and thoughtful ways. More recently we have the "I can design my own house" mentality - and we certainly are not richer for it!

The result is homes like this - designed by builders where the bottom line is key and a draftsperson is paid minimally to design something "unique". With five different exterior wall finishes, a column holding up nothing but a stuccoed beam, and a walk out roof deck above the double car garage. How bizarre. 

Another in the same development, oddly jutting forms, a collection of mismatched window styles and sizes, and this use of cheaper vinyl siding on side walls has to stop - we can see it from the front and it just screams "I was built on a budget". 

And right around the corner, as if to emphasize that this development can indeed have "oh so many" poorly designed houses, sits this garage with an entry way tacked on the side. I could not determine why the roofline above the garage is so high, no windows indicating living space above it - and that is another design rule - if it doesn't make visual sense to the casual observer, it cannot appeal. This one certainly does not!

We are drawn to houses such as these for very basic reasons - they make sense - the porch is for sitting on, the front door is prominent and logically used to enter and be greeted, the large window is a sitting room, the upper gable windows are bedrooms, etc. The detailing is pleasing and shows that these homes were built by craftsmen who were proud of their work and took care with the construction. We have so many examples of how to do it right, that our insistence on doing it poorly by reinventing the home and "improving" it is a real head shaker.

Rory McDonnell is a General Contractor, Licensed Carpenter and Architectural Designer with Build, a construction firm in Stratford, Ontario, specializing in new custom home builds and renovations.

Pillar Six: Craft with Natural Materials

Fine craftsmanship and natural materials are timeless and are meant to endure. Less likely to be replaced by wear or trends, contributes to saving money and a healthy environment.
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Pillar Seven: Create the Patina of Age

The popularity of salvaged materials is proof that people enjoy the beauty of well aged and natural. New materials have a more convincing antiqued appearance if aged by natural weathering processes.
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Pillar Eight: Incorporate Modern Conveniences

We don’t expect you to live as if it were the early 1900s! You will need your modern conveniences and there are many ways to integrate and hide them to maintain the illusion of a vintage house.
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The doors at St. James Anglican Church in Stratford are coming down for restoration today. The church built in the late 1860s was designed in the Decorated Gothic Revival style by Toronto architect's Gundry and Langley. The exterior of the building is protected by an Ontario Heritage Trust conservation easement (1985) and is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. 

A new "old" house is a new home tailored for modern living but designed within the style and proportions of a traditional house. Designing and building a new home steeped in tradition is high on Build's builder bucket list. The majority of new houses lack the care and thoughtful design attributed to master craftsman of the past and instead rely on imbalanced design and cheap materials. Education and intuition is important when designing a home but there are also rules which can be applied to the process. 

Architect Russell Versaci’s Eight Pillars of Traditional Design are a helpful guide and compliment Build’s philosophy of Modern & Traditional Heritage Builders which we incorporate into all of our design projects. The following are the first four pillars and examples from our own portfolio:
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Pillar One: Invent Within the Rules​
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Stay within the rules of a style of architecture. Invent using this traditional language, especially with additions and restorations, follow the cues of the style and proportions of the existing house.

Pillar Two: Respect the Character of Place

Every geographical area has local building traditions often based on the land, climate and history of the people who migrated there, the design and materials should reflect this history.
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Cheers to the lovely red brick homes on Church Street! This one built in 1889 by James Corcoran, a Stratford business man, has a charmingly irregular design. A great example of late Victorian architecture; decorative bargeboards with a sunburst motif, detailed chimneys and brickwork, interesting rooflines and plenty of stained glass. The unique double front doors with bevelled glass were added in 1900. Our favourite standout heritage feature is the circular porch and veranda, a nice place to sit if spring decides to arrive this year!

Catherine Cassidy is a Designer with Build, a construction firm in Stratford, Ontario, specializing in new custom homes and renovations.

Thomas Ballantyne, the founder of Black Creek Cheese Factory had this Queen Anne house constructed in 1892. This extra wide bay and gable red brick facade has a delicately embellished entrance porch in the geometric Eastlake style. The repetition of the 3 second level windows create a nice balance to the sunburst in the gable and the Romanesque half round windows. Ultimately charming and worth noting is the decorative brickwork throughout.

Catherine Cassidy is a Designer with Build, a construction firm in Stratford, Ontario, specializing in new custom homes and renovations.

Reading that Perth County Council in all their supposed wisdom is even considering tearing down the former Land Registry Office / Archives building was enough to cause a sharp intake of breath followed by a rise in blood pressure and overall shaking of my head in disbelief.

To reflect on the shortcomings of the new building housing our archives whilst being told the original may be demolished is truly dismaying. I am no great fan of moving heritage structures from their native locations, but was this even considered before the rush to design the building which passes now as an acceptable home to our treasured collection of historical items?

I cannot fathom where we as a society have gone astray in our seeming disregard for the physical built elements of our past. They are, with few exceptions, wonderful examples of the determination of an earlier generation - of their desire to build for the future while at the same time leaving a tangible example of their craftsmanship and ingenuity. These buildings have lasted the test of time in a way few more recently built structures will, and yet some consider them disposable. We need these links to our past. Its that age old adage thing again - about knowing where you've been - a prime example of something we should cherish and hold onto. 

The Perth County Courthouse is a sister building to the old Land Registry Office - sharing elements and style, let alone location, with this wonderful building. If this ones goes, is it not logical to worry about the fate of the courthouse next to it? To have three significant heritage structures next to each other, including the jail, is rare indeed, in this day and age. This needs to be nipped in the bud. Fingers crossed that the residents of Stratford, and their elected representatives, show more concern for this building than the residents of Perth County are demonstrating thru the public statements of their politicians. ​

This is simply wrong. There are innumerable examples of thoughtful and imaginative ways to repurpose and honour old buildings such as this...

, …a wonderfully crafted example of how we have strayed off the path of sustainable and thoughtful building, of proper proportion/scale, detailing and style. It is simply wrongheaded and shortsighted. Something to consider for "Heritage Day" on February 15th.
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Rory McDonnell is a General Contractor, Licensed Carpenter and Architectural Designer with Build, a construction firm in Stratford, Ontario, specializing in new custom home builds and renovations.

This 1848, Queen Anne home in Woodstock, has a variety of special features. The two large verandas with decorative details are particularly charming. As well as the pretty gable dormer above the front entrance. But the most distinctive is the segmented brickwork around the central, ellipse transomed, front door which creates a perspective effect drawing you in to this grand old house.

Rory McDonnell is a General Contractor, Licensed Carpenter and Architectural Designer with Build, a construction firm in Stratford, Ontario, specializing in new custom home builds and renovations.