Posted with permission from the Hamilton Spectator
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Had a couple of residents ask me about this article from Paul, this home is located just over the Lift Bridge on the Burlington side and it is still the Beach, our Beach.
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July 25, 2008
Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jul 25, 2008)
The Beach Strip used to be just cottages. People stayed for the summer then put up the shutters and went back to life in the city.
That changed years ago, and people now live on that five- kilometre spit of sand all year long.
But the beach house we're visiting today is still just a summer home, unwinterized in any way. The descendants of Charles Wilson are using the place just the way he intended when he arrived on the strip 101 years ago.
Yet his great-granddaughters' eyes grow moist as they tell the story. Because this is the last summer.
Charles was a bookbinder and lived on Cannon East near James. In 1907 he bought a cottage on the Beach, not far from the canal.
The Beach Strip was narrow then, the Skyway still half-a-century away. Walk out the front door, and there was the bay, still great for swimming. Out the back door, it was across the sands and into Lake Ontario.
In 1919 the cottage burned down. Charles Wilson promptly rebuilt it, but he chose a novel design. He erected a cottage split in two, to create a getaway for both his sons. The halves were mirror images, each with three bedrooms, fireplace in the parlour, porch out front, kitchen in the back.
By 1963, the entire cottage had come into the hands of Charles' granddaughter Andrea Wilson Prentice. She was married and living in Montreal, but that beach house had always been part of her life and she was not about to let it go.
She had four children. As soon as the school year ended, she would pack up the kids, leave her husband in peace, and take the train from Montreal to spend July and August by the lake.
In 1969 the family moved to Burlington, to a house on Walker's Line near Spruce. The end of school still meant packing everything up, but the trek to the beach house had become a trip of about seven kilometres. They stayed all summer, each summer.
Marjorie Prentice is the youngest of the children, mother of two. She and sister Mary Ellen conduct a tour.
Here's the path through the wild grape that leads to the beach. Mother would take down a strainer and clear a patch on the sand for her kids, free of all sticks and stones.
Here's the sofa filled with horsehair, on which the sisters slouched every summer.
Here's Mary Ellen's bedroom, top of the stairs. If you wake early enough, it offers a perfect view of the sun coming up over the lake. The horse posters she put up as a teen are still here. They're faded, but adulthood did bring a horse.
The beds, the dressers, the bread box, the wood hangers in the closets, the claw-foot tubs in the twin bathrooms, the boxes of old puzzles, the ancient family portraits and the paint-by-number scenes -- all are as it was. The old medicine cabinets, too, with the yellowed Sixteen Rules For Health posted inside. No. 7: "Always sleep with the windows open."
Growing up in Burlington, Marjorie didn't talk much about their place on the Beach Strip. Cottages were supposed to be up north. And the Beach Strip had a bad rep then. Bikers lived there.
"I remember my Grade 9 teacher said the Beach was a slum and they should just tear everything down," Marjorie says. "I was too shy to say anything."
Later in life, she ended up in Vancouver for 10 years. Sister Mary Ellen ended up in Britain for 12. But they always co-ordinated their summers to be together at the beach house each year.
Mother died three years ago at 72. Father never did have the same attachment to the beach house. "A money pit," he would say. After mother was gone, he just couldn't see keeping it any longer.
"It's kind of old and falling apart. It needs work, and we all have other houses," Marjorie says. "I think my father sees it would be a burden on us."
A couple of weeks ago he put out a For Sale sign. A few days later a buyer offered $275,000 for the property.
It's the same fellow who has Burlington's famed Gingerbread House on Ontario Street. He plans to winterize and restore the beach house. The deal is to close not long after the last day of the last summer.
StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
pwilson@thespec.com
905-526-3391
Photo #1 Forum Photo
Photo #2 Thanks to Marjorie Prentice
________________________________________________
Had a couple of residents ask me about this article from Paul, this home is located just over the Lift Bridge on the Burlington side and it is still the Beach, our Beach.
___________________________________________________
July 25, 2008
Paul Wilson
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jul 25, 2008)
The Beach Strip used to be just cottages. People stayed for the summer then put up the shutters and went back to life in the city.
That changed years ago, and people now live on that five- kilometre spit of sand all year long.
But the beach house we're visiting today is still just a summer home, unwinterized in any way. The descendants of Charles Wilson are using the place just the way he intended when he arrived on the strip 101 years ago.
Yet his great-granddaughters' eyes grow moist as they tell the story. Because this is the last summer.
Charles was a bookbinder and lived on Cannon East near James. In 1907 he bought a cottage on the Beach, not far from the canal.
The Beach Strip was narrow then, the Skyway still half-a-century away. Walk out the front door, and there was the bay, still great for swimming. Out the back door, it was across the sands and into Lake Ontario.
In 1919 the cottage burned down. Charles Wilson promptly rebuilt it, but he chose a novel design. He erected a cottage split in two, to create a getaway for both his sons. The halves were mirror images, each with three bedrooms, fireplace in the parlour, porch out front, kitchen in the back.
By 1963, the entire cottage had come into the hands of Charles' granddaughter Andrea Wilson Prentice. She was married and living in Montreal, but that beach house had always been part of her life and she was not about to let it go.
She had four children. As soon as the school year ended, she would pack up the kids, leave her husband in peace, and take the train from Montreal to spend July and August by the lake.
In 1969 the family moved to Burlington, to a house on Walker's Line near Spruce. The end of school still meant packing everything up, but the trek to the beach house had become a trip of about seven kilometres. They stayed all summer, each summer.
Marjorie Prentice is the youngest of the children, mother of two. She and sister Mary Ellen conduct a tour.
Here's the path through the wild grape that leads to the beach. Mother would take down a strainer and clear a patch on the sand for her kids, free of all sticks and stones.
Here's the sofa filled with horsehair, on which the sisters slouched every summer.
Here's Mary Ellen's bedroom, top of the stairs. If you wake early enough, it offers a perfect view of the sun coming up over the lake. The horse posters she put up as a teen are still here. They're faded, but adulthood did bring a horse.
The beds, the dressers, the bread box, the wood hangers in the closets, the claw-foot tubs in the twin bathrooms, the boxes of old puzzles, the ancient family portraits and the paint-by-number scenes -- all are as it was. The old medicine cabinets, too, with the yellowed Sixteen Rules For Health posted inside. No. 7: "Always sleep with the windows open."
Growing up in Burlington, Marjorie didn't talk much about their place on the Beach Strip. Cottages were supposed to be up north. And the Beach Strip had a bad rep then. Bikers lived there.
"I remember my Grade 9 teacher said the Beach was a slum and they should just tear everything down," Marjorie says. "I was too shy to say anything."
Later in life, she ended up in Vancouver for 10 years. Sister Mary Ellen ended up in Britain for 12. But they always co-ordinated their summers to be together at the beach house each year.
Mother died three years ago at 72. Father never did have the same attachment to the beach house. "A money pit," he would say. After mother was gone, he just couldn't see keeping it any longer.
"It's kind of old and falling apart. It needs work, and we all have other houses," Marjorie says. "I think my father sees it would be a burden on us."
A couple of weeks ago he put out a For Sale sign. A few days later a buyer offered $275,000 for the property.
It's the same fellow who has Burlington's famed Gingerbread House on Ontario Street. He plans to winterize and restore the beach house. The deal is to close not long after the last day of the last summer.
StreetBeat appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
pwilson@thespec.com
905-526-3391
Photo #1 Forum Photo
Photo #2 Thanks to Marjorie Prentice