By TORI STAFFORD, THE WHIG-STANDARD

Posted 48 minutes ago

After years of standing boarded up and unmaintained, a little-known city landmark in an out-of- the-way city park is quietly being renovated.

How quietly?

“I didn’t know it was happening. I just went there about a week ago and saw it,” Tony Clark said.

Clark’s wife, Margaret Wartman Clark, is a direct descendant of Loyalist Abraham Wartman, who settled the property at the foot of Sunny Acres Road now known as Wartman-Paterson Park in 1784. Wartman grew up in the house, and both of the couple’s daughters lived there up until the late 1970s.

Tony Clark discovered the work was underway when he went to the park for his annual birthday picnic.

“I thought they might have let my wife know what was happening, but nobody has,” he said.

Wartman House is the old limestone building at the entrance to the park. Though the exact date of when it was built is unknown, what is certain is that the house is at least 170 years old, and served as the farmhouse for Peter Wartman and his family on the property.

The renovation work began in late March, said Cindie Ashton of the City of Kingston.

“The roof has been restored to the original cedar shingle design,” Ashton wrote in an e-mail to the Whig-Standard.

“We have rebuilt the roof from the rafters up (including) decking, strapping, shingles (and) flashings.”

Stone pointing has been completed on the exterior of the building and, although the stone walls were structurally sound, joints that had deteriorated or had been repaired incorrectly in the past are being replaced or repaired.

Work still to be done includes the replacement of all soffit and fascia with new wood, and the painting of all exterior wood surfaces, Ashton said.

The family couldn’t be happier to see the homestead getting refurbished.

“My wife is absolutely ecstatic that somebody is paying attention to it,” said Clark, speaking on behalf of his ailing spouse.

“We thought (the city was) going to let it go. It hadn’t been worked on for a long time. It was looking pretty bad and we were quite disappointed that nobody was paying attention to it.”

The former Kingston Township purchased the property in 1962 and erected a plaque on the site indicating that the Peter Wartman House was built in 1803. The plaque declares the building “the first stone house built on the shores of Lake Ontario between Kingston and Toronto.”

Much of that information is contentious, however. According to a report from the Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee to city council in June 2003, the first home on the site was a log cabin built in 1784 by Abraham and Catherine Wartman and their seven children, who had come to Kingston from Pennsylvania as Loyalist refugees with Capt. Michael Grass.

Documentation for the Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee speaks to the confusion over the actual date of the building that still stands in Wartman- Paterson Park was constructed.

“There is historical evidence for a limestone dwelling in the early part of the 1800s, but it is insufficient to challenge the c. 1840 dating,” the report to council reads, referring to the committee’s findings that the style and construction are indicative of 1840s architecture.

Local architectural historian Jennifer McKendry believes it is more likely that the house was built in the 1820s.

While working on her MA thesis on 19th-century residences at Queen’s University, McKendry compared the Wartman House to one built by relatives of the Wartmans and fellow Loyalists, the Snook family.

Located on Latimer Road, the Snook residence is very similar in appearance, McKendry said. Both houses have simple door treatments and a rectangular transom light above the main doorway.

“Things like that help to clue you in to the date,” McKendry explained.

“If it had been the 1840s, given that they were a wealthy family, what you start to find then is a more elaborate treatment of the front door.”

Both houses have flanking, symmetrical windows, as well. But one big difference is the date stone in the Snook house, which reads 1820.

Some other things tipped that McKendry off that the building was more likely c. 1820 include the interior doors and moulding, and the oven and stove.

Whether these interior tell-tale designs are even still there, McKendry said, is a big question mark.

According to Clark, when he and his family were invited to go into the house shortly after the former township purchased the property, there was nothing inside.

“We were allowed to have a look inside after they’d gutted it,” he said.

“The inside is bare stone wall, and the basement is full of some kind of rubble to keep the foundation from collapsing … I believe they took everything out.”

The very thought that the interior design was removed was one McKendry didn’t want to imagine. When she was in the house in the mid-1970s, it was still furnished, as though a family had been living there not long before.

“All of this woodwork that I was so impressed with … it would just be terrible to think that it’s gone,” McKendry said.

At the time she went through it, she also went through another stone house on the neighbouring property, where the Kingston West Water Purification Plant now stands.

“The very fact there was a neighbouring stone building that was demolished makes the one that survived even more precious,” said McKendry.

“The Wartmans were Loyalists, and the Loyalists were obviously an important historical factor in the area.”

Both Clark and McKendry expressed hope that the house would not end up boarded up again after the restoration. As a major heritage site for Kingston and the area, the building should be used for something more significant than a landmark, they agreed.

Although Clark said his wife is definitely happy the renovations are happening, she’s always wanted something more to be done with the house.

“She’d like to see it preserved,” he said. “She’s always told the city that, if they did something sensible with it, she’d try to look up some of the old deeds and stuff that she’s got in her files.”

According to Ashton, the city is unsure of the future of the home.

“The city does not currently have a plan for the building,” she wrote.

“The repairs to the roof and stone are the most immediate work required to protect this very significant heritage property from the elements.”

The city’s plans for the project state the building will be boarded up again. New plywood will be installed over the openings for the windows and doors, Ashton said.

tstafford@thewhig.com