A busy Barrie intersection has seen all types of traffic — from horse-drawn wagons to muscle cars — for more than 200 years.
And a stately, near-century home at the intersection of Sunnidale Road and Wellington Street West has been around for a good part of that time, built into a hill in 1923 overlooking what was then a growing town.
Businesses of all sorts were thriving — the Barrie Badminton Club was formed, longtime (34 years) Barrie Police Chief Robert King died, and fire destroyed the Minet’s Point dance pavilion.
John Ritson tells BarrieToday he bought the three-storey brick building in 1994 and has made it his own, including an architectural twist topside. Accessible by sturdy stairs from the third floor is the roof deck.
It affords a beautiful view of the city and Kempenfelt Bay.
“I needed a big spot with lots of privacy, lots of trees and a view,” Ritson says of his original decision to buy the house, adding that, depending on the time of year, he can see a line of trees across the bay from one of his main-floor sitting rooms.
But the view’s even better from the ‘crow’s nest’, which Ritson had constructed after moving in.
“I’m a fan of the night sky — I like to watch the planets align and the constellations shift,” he says. “In the fall, it’s a beautiful sea of colour; you can barely even see the houses. I’m well above the trees while I’m up there. I’m looking down on 40-foot high trees between here and the lakefront.
“It’s a nice place to sit and play my guitar.”
Besides doing some foundational work, painting rooms and sanding floors, Ritson has left the interior of the home as original as possible, including the four-inch or so wide stained wood casements around the windows and doors.
“There is the original tongue-and-groove hardwood floors, plastered ceilings about nine feet high along with five-foot tall windows,” he says, adding every window in the house — whatever the size — was replaced back in the late '90s with high-efficiency models, custom-made to keep that beautiful indoor trim intact.
The house sits on a very historic corner with Ross Street and Sunnidale Road being on the original Nine Mile Portage route that would take soldiers and settlers to the Nottawasaga River and Georgian Bay. And prior to that it was a trading route used by First Nations people.
Ritson’s house was constructed even before Wellington Street was a reality, and became the busy thoroughfare it is.
“It is a busy intersection,” he says. “When I bought the house in ’94, Wellington, at that time, was still just a two-lane road: one going west, one going east. The very year I bought it is when they did all the work of widening Wellington Street (at Sunnidale and Ross) so now it’s a main arterial road going west and east.
“I lost some frontage when they did that,” Ritson adds. “My lawn originally sloped down to the middle of what is now Wellington and there is now a big retaining wall that protects the rest of the lawn from eroding onto Wellington Street.”
