Appendix A- Designation Bylaw (Reasons for Designation)

From By-Law No. 142-2002
Passed by City Council May 27, 2002
Filed in Land Registry June 2, 2002

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:

HISTORICAL

• Built in 1919 – 1920 for William Thomas Wesgate (1870-1933) who is best known as the manufacturer of fine ice cream, owning the Wesgate Ice Cream Manufacturing Plant, originally located on the southwest corner of Strabane and Sandwich Streets (Riverside Dr.) in Ford City.

• Active in municipal politics, Mr. Wesgate was a councillor in Ford City (1917-1918) and in Windsor (1927-1929), as well as serving on the Windsor Public School Board for four years, serving as chairman in 1924.

• Mr. Wesgate lived in the home until his death in 1933, while his widow (Jessie) remained until 1966.

ARCHITECTURAL

• Excellent and well-preserved example of the Colonial Revival style home-symmetrical, 2 ½ storey, red brick home with a gable roof.

• Architectural elements of note include: prominent front doorway with arched entrance porch with Doric columns/pilasters, dentiled cornices and gable ends, arch-roofed dormers, single storey wings with balustraded decks, grouped windows with original pane patterns (generally 6/1 or 4/1), Palladian windows on the gable ends, shallow wooden ell on west façade, original red tile roof, matching hip-roofed garage with wooden doors.

• Turreted balcony on west facing porch

• Diamond shaped window panels in windows including bay on north façade

• Half-timbering on gable ends

• Original roofing material - cedar shakes.