My Goodbye Letter to Glencairn (14785 Niagara River Parkway)
This grand estate is…was… situated along the Niagara Parkway on the “broken front” of lot 9 in Niagara-on-the-Lake. In 1826, John Hamilton purchased 8 acres of this property for only 150 pounds. John was the son of prominent Queenston resident Robert Hamilton (Sr.), who was a politician, judge, and businessman. At the age of just 21, John collected his share of his father’s wealth, and unlike his older half-brothers, he invested it wisely. Besides land, John bought and leased steamships, and with his brother, Robert (Jr.), they created the Queenston Steamboat Company. For many years, the sight of his steamships was common on the lake, running mail and goods between Niagara, Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, and Prescott. Around 1832, Hamilton solicited John Latshaw (the same architect who would go on to design Willowbank) to build him a two-storey, 2,500 square foot home—complete with 9 fireplaces—facing the Niagara River.
Here, John and Frances Hamilton raised their 10 children. It is believed that in the 1830s, a stone schoolhouse was built for the Hamilton children as well as the estate workers.
By 1844, John transferred his shipping business to Kingston and moved his family there. Rather than sell this home, he became a landlord and rented the land to farmers, and his family used the residence in the summer months. In 1861, the house and land (now totalling 12 acres) were valued at $2,500. In comparison, Willowbank, with about 14 acres of land, was valued at only $1,940. This goes to show you how truly grand this house… was.
In 1866, Hamilton sold the property, and it made its way into the hands of another transportation baron, William A. Thompson, the President of the Erie and Niagara Railway. Thompson put quite a bit of money into improving the house and property. The house was renovated/restored, the stone wall around the property was built, and the coach house, complete with wine cellar, was also constructed. But most notably, under his ownership, the estate was named “Glencairn”. Those enjoying a drive along the Parkway were once only able to see the stone wall of Glencairn, unless they were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it during the winter months.
After the deaths of Thompson and his wife, the property remained in the hands of their eight children. In 1888, they sold it to Bronson Rumsey, a merchant in Buffalo, for $5,500. Rumsey, who remained a resident of Buffalo, likely used Glencairn as a summer home, but with the property taxes nearing $3,000, he opted to sell it in the fall of 1900 to John D. Larkin for “$1 and other valuable considerations”.
Larkin was a wealthy soap manufacturer from Buffalo who pioneered the mail-order business model. He made major contributions to the property, including planting honeysuckles, dogwoods, and white lilacs to complement the forsythia and wisteria likely planted during the John Hamilton era. Larkin also had a Japanese teahouse built for his wife sometime before famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited in 1905. In that same year, author Blanche Elizabeth Wade published the novel “A Garden in Pink”, which was inspired by the teahouse on the property. Within its pages were illustrated images of the teahouse.
Even though it was only a summer house, Larkin also added a south wing to accommodate additional bathrooms and bedrooms, as well as a dining room, a pantry, a kitchen, and rooms for their servants. He added other buildings, including a carriage house, built by resident James Calvert, and the caretaker’s house. He also had three additional homes built on the property for his children.
In 1923, Larkin “sold” Glencairn for $1 to his daughter Ruth L. Robb, whose husband, Walter, had once lived in the schoolhouse on the property.
On April 16, 2025, this home, which once stood as an important and rare example of Classic (Greek) Revival architecture in Ontario, was engulfed in flames.
When news of the fire circulated through the Museum, my heart sank. Not only had this write-up been published in the newspaper in January 2025, but I had also undertaken research into this building for our previous exhibition, The Prettiest Town: Beyond the Bricks and Mortar. I guess through all of this, I became attached to its history and its value as a heritage property to our Town and the Queenston community. And perhaps because of this, it is likely why I found myself driving down the Parkway after work on April 16.
As I neared the house, I breathed a sigh of relief…there were still some walls. But photos of the devastation captured from the American side of the river show that the front of the house, which had the grand Doric and Ionic columns, was gone. The roof had also caved in and many of the windows were hollowed out. But Glencairn still looked magnificent, just hauntingly so.
To be honest, I am not sure if it can be renovated to its former glory.
In 1992, The Oban Inn suffered a devastating fire on Christmas Day. The building couldn’t be salvaged. Instead of building something new, the owners chose to rebuild it exactly as it once stood. That is my hope for Glencairn.
My other hope is that this devastation results in more people wanting to designate their heritage properties in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I have seen many comments on social media expressing sadness over the loss of this property. Let’s use this passion for our built heritage to try and protect the buildings we still have in our town. What happened to Glencairn was unpredictable. Protecting a heritage building from unsympathetic alterations or demolition is something that we can predict. It is something that can be done now to ensure the longevity of our town’s heritage assets. After all, our heritage buildings are just one of the many reasons why Niagara-on-the-Lake is often called the prettiest town.
Thank you to the NOTL Fire Department for their efforts to try and save this property and anyone who may have been residing in it.