In our inaugural episode, we explore the project that inspired the podcast, the restoration of The Brown Homestead. Founders Andrew and Jennifer Humeniuk revisit their journey from the purchase of the historic site in 2015 through reimagining its future as a community cultural space where people gather to celebrate our heritage and work together to shape a brighter future.
In our inaugural episode, we explore the project that inspired the podcast, the restoration of The Brown Homestead. Founders Andrew and Jennifer Humeniuk revisit their journey from the purchase of the historic site in 2015 through reimagining its future as a community cultural space where people gather to celebrate our heritage and work together to shape a brighter future.
EPISODE 1
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:09.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Open Door where we work to create a brighter future by understanding the past. Presented by The Brown Homestead in the heart of the beautiful Niagara Peninsula.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:24.5] AH: It makes sense that our first episode would be about the project that inspired this podcast, the restoration of The Brown Homestead, said is the oldest house in St. Catharines and one of the oldest in Ontario. We’re not going to talk about the early history, we’ll do that in upcoming episodes.
Today’s about the future of this historic site. We’re going to go all the way back to 2015 when we purchased the property and began the process of reimagining what the next chapter in the life of this important place could look like. I’m Andrew Humeniuk your host, thank you for listening. There was really only one choice of who to speak to today and that’s the person who has been beside me since the beginning and through every step. Jennifer Humeniuk is my partner in not just The Homestead but also in our other big project, being married and raising children. Welcome Jennifer.
[0:01:16.2] JH: Thank you. I am so excited to be here today. The journey to create something meaningful form the site of your ancestral home has led us not only towards creating a brighter future for ourselves and for Niagara but to believe that we could help others to do the same, so here we are.
[0:01:35.3] AH: Jennifer, it’s safe to say that since we purchased The Brown Homestead in 2015, everything has gone exactly as originally planned, right?
[0:01:45.1] JH: I might not put it exactly that way. Actually, I think as we’ve often said it was an incredibly steep learning curve but lots of fun at the same time.
[0:01:54.2] AH: In many ways, 2015 was amateur hour.
[0:01:57.1] JH: It really was. I mean, as much as we both loved history and old buildings, we were working in entirely different careers and neither of us had any experience with heritage conservation or connection to the heritage community and really, it all started because of your hobby researching your family’s history.
[0:02:14.5] AH: Yeah, that’s true. Like a lot of people I was interested in genealogy, learning about family history but I was a little bit unsatisfying because at the end of the day, you end up with a list of names and dates and places that ultimately doesn’t mean too terribly much and for me, I wanted to get to know the people. I want to discover who they were, which was what led to the house.
[0:02:35.7] JH: That’s right. When do you remember first hearing about the house?
[0:02:40.1] AH: I heard about it in theory and then discovered it in newspapers. People writing about it because it was at risk and it was for sale at the time, which was surprising because this was an old house that had owners that wanted to protect it and people writing about how important it was to preserve it. Yet, it was still at risk.
[0:02:58.2] JH: Right, then we went to see it.
[0:03:00.4] AH: Absolutely, that was quite a day. The homestead had been a working farm owned by only three families for most of its 220 years. The fourth family that owned it was that of John [inaudible] Heritage, a consultant who sought to preserve it. The house hadn’t been updated very much, which is part of why it’s such a treasure today because it’s far more original material and heritage features inside than you usually find even in houses of this age.
It was, for example, the only house in St. Catharines that had both an interior and an exterior heritage designation and Rodman Hall recently became the second, which tells you a little something about how special that is. While it’s beautiful and rustic from a historian’s perspective, you’re not going to find too many people willing to live that way today. The interested buyers all wanted to either gut the interior or at least modify it significantly at the expense of the historically significant elements.
[0:04:04.5] JH: Right, in other words, as a private home, building is always vulnerable in some respects.
[0:04:08.8] AH: Yes, especially in cases like this where it had become evident that either the host was going to be preserved or it was going to continue to be a private family home but not both.
[0:04:19.9] JH: Right. The house, being no longer a family home raises a question. As our dear friend and historian, Brian [inaudible] one said, “If a chair can’t be sat in, is it even a chair anymore?” That’s a really important concept because it’s not just a question of how to protect the old buildings but also, the more important one almost is why.
[0:04:40.1] AH: Exactly. If we love places like this like you and I do, then it feels self-evident, why protect it? Well, because, just look at it. For someone who doesn’t see things the way we do, it’s not so obvious but that why question is important, has to be answered. I hate to say it but we both seem energetic heritage advocates get frozen by that question, why? Why preserve it? It can be a hard question. What’s the answer, Jennifer?
[0:05:11.9] JH: Thank you. We could do a whole series of episodes on that question alone and we could do an hour on the educational reasons. We could do an hour on the environmental reasons, another hour on the socioeconomic reasons, how long do I have?
[0:05:26.5] AH: Let’s see what you can do with about 60 seconds.
[0:05:29.6] JH: Yeah, wow, okay. Why preserve any historic site? It’s all about context, I mean, conservation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It isn’t just a distraction for more critical issues like the environment or social change or economic opportunities, these things all go together.
[0:05:48.2] AH: Preservation is a piece of a holistic approach to a lot of the challenges we’re facing right now.
[0:05:54.3] JH: Yeah, exactly and anyone who cares about any of those issues has a stake in what we conserve and how and why. Whether you’re looking at the struggle of North American post-industrial cities like St. Catharines or the declining economic health in rural communities. Whatever your context is, the decisions we make today about what to keep and how will shape our world, not just for tomorrow but for generations.
[0:06:22.3] AH: These choices become our collective story, they’re who we are as a people and history is the telling of that story.
[0:06:29.1] JH: Exactly. The challenge for a heritage strategy is how to best bridge this divide between the high degree of importance that individuals and communities place on cultural heritage and then the relatively low political profile that it has. And with the relatively low level of support that cultural heritage has.
[0:06:49.9] AH: True. Cultural heritage also falls into the gaps between the arts, culture, planning and the environment. Which means that in policy terms, it’s often invisible or close to it and all of this, the contemporary context inherent to the preservation of our cultural heritage, our historic sites, our old buildings led you to recommend the Alexis De Tocqueville quote that’s on our website.
[0:07:17.9] JH: When the past no longer illuminates the future the spirit walks in darkness. How’d I do?
[0:07:25.8] AH: I love the answer but it may have been a little more than 60 seconds.
[0:07:29.3] JH: Sorry.
[0:07:30.5] AH: That’s okay. The why is so critical to Heritage conservation in general, it’s worth far more than 60 seconds. But it’s also the foundation for the next big question for us, which is how.
[0:07:42.3] JH: Yes, that’s huge and in particular, how the heck were we going to take care of and protect this particular house?
[0:07:49.1] AH: Which takes us back from the big picture to our own personal journey because after visiting the homestead that first time, we decided we were going to try to buy it.
[0:07:57.5] JH: True and not true. We didn’t buy it as a couple.
[0:08:01.4] AH: Correct, an important distinction. When we finally committed ourselves to being the ones who would try to save those, we established a charity to purchase it rather than buying it personally.
[0:08:14.3] JH: It was your idea and I thought it was brilliant actually, it was done in order to ensure that the house would remain protected even if something happened to one or both of us. To ensure that protection would continue well beyond our lifetime.
[0:08:29.0] AH: I think what I said at the time was I reluctantly accepted that I’m not going to live another 200 years and the house is probably going to be there. Anyway, as you remember, it wasn’t easy but eventually we were successful and the sale closed on August 14th 2015, just a touch over six years ago. That’s when the question of how really kicked in and when I think back, it was an element of not just how but what now.
[0:08:58.2] JH: Right. As Alexander Graham Bell once said, "Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."
[0:09:06.5] AH: Right, what you do when you want to learn how to do something new is you go talk to the people who are doing it. I don’t remember how many historic house museums we’ve toured starting in early 2015.
[0:09:17.9] JH: A lot, an awful lot, a really lot.
[0:09:23.0] AH: That is true. We saw some fantastic old homes and we met some fantastic people, passionate, generous people who were willing to answer all of our questions. I remember feeling a little confused or more confused than when we’d started because we couldn’t seem to crack the code and figure out this business model, figure out how it worked.
[0:09:46.2] JH: Well, that’s kind of when we started to realize that maybe it didn’t anymore. The traditional model of the house museum, the one that was rooted in the notion of a reproduction or a restored, an “authentic” version of what was there at a specific period. That was so popular during the 20th century, especially the latter half of t he 20th century and it really was a movement that revitalized heritage conservation and was incredibly exciting and educational for so many people.
At the same time, the digital world has changed that fairly radically, we still have multiple places that you can visit, places like Green Gables Heritage Place, in Prince Edward Island or [inaudible] Hall, Black Creek Pioneer Village and down south, there’s some shining examples like Mount Vernon or Colonial Williamsburg but these places have become the exception and not the rule. The traditional house museums are still fun but time has really changed their effectiveness in terms of the draw because people have so much more access online to different things and approach their learning differently as well, I think.
[0:10:57.6] AH: No, I agree and that’s what we discovered, I distinctly remember our turning point, it was a foundational moment for us. We spent about 90 minutes in this beautiful old home in Mississauga speaking to this very helpful woman who ran the place, she answered all our questions, she shared with us her information, her work plans and so on. I remember looking at each other and I think it dawned on us at the same time, nobody was there.
It was a sunny weekend afternoon in the summer and the whole time we were there, nobody came except us. I think that was the moment that really gave us permission to let go of the expectations so we carried into the process. Start with a clean slate. We stopped planning what we were going to do and started reimagining what we might do, what we could do.
[0:11:48.3] JH: Even if we didn’t have the answers. The thing is, we were asking the right questions but we started to realize I think that we were maybe asking the wrong people and that what we really needed to do was to talk to our neighbours. That goes back to the question of why preserve a site which is to make it valuable to that community. We began by looking at the historical and contemporary context of the site and let t hose speak to us about finding its meaningful use and its purpose today.
[0:12:19.8] AH: That’s where our outreach began, talking to local people in groups, hosting events, taking surveys, essentially inviting as many people as we could to give us their ideas and their opinions.
[0:12:30.5] JH: Absolutely, I mean we did a lot of surveys with our neighbours at coffee shops and the Short Hills Park across the street. We spoke to local Chamber of Commerce, we went to historical societies across Niagara, it was fantastic.
[0:12:44.3] AH: Very importantly, we reached out to representatives from the City of St. Catharines.
[0:12:48.6] JH: Oh my gosh, yes. I think that’s hugely important and important to any historic site or anybody who is trying to restore a historic site is to connect early and stay in touch with the regulatory bodies in their area.
[0:13:02.8] AH: Yeah, not just as regular bodies but as government is the representatives of the people and if we say that heritage is important, it is because the community has a stake in those places. Getting on the same page with them at the beginning was essential and regarding them and treating them like a partner is the way to go and they’ll be there for you with support and guidance.
I have to say the City of St. Catharines has been extremely supportive of us and our ideas but that doesn’t mean we’re going to have to dot all our 'I’s and cross all of our 'T’s like everybody else but it is appreciated. When I think about it, all of that outreach was really the start of our open door policy, letting people know that we really did want their input.
[0:13:44.1] JH: Absolutely, as you know, if The Brown Homestead was going to be a place that people wanted to come, we needed to know what they would want to do when they got here.
[0:13:52.7] AH: The open door theme runs through a lot of what we do including obviously this podcast.
[0:13:57.3] JH: That’s right and if you missed it, you can take a listen to Episode 0, where Andrew discusses the inspiration for that term.
[0:14:05.1] AH: Thank you for the nice plug there, but the notion of the open door is one of the primary ideas and inspires us, not just in what we want to do here but in the spirit that we want to do it as well. The place was like this, the farm house and the schools and the churches here in Niagara and everywhere else and the people that inhabited them, that’s what fed and nurtured and built our communities. I think maybe the greatest potential legacy for these types of historic sites is to become gathering places where that work can continue.
[0:14:38.3] JH: Absolutely, I mean that’s where the idea of The Brown Homestead as Niagara’s homestead really started and because we were focused on learning what people would want to do and what they’d want to experience here, it was at that time that we decided we can’t and shouldn’t throw a lot of money at a specific restoration choice until we really knew what those different spaces were going to be used for, which of course didn’t mean there wasn’t a lot of work to be done in the interim.
[0:15:06.3] AH: Yes, there was a lot of work to be done, a lot of site work to be done outside primarily. You know, the house having been in limbo for many years things had deteriorated somewhat. There was a lot of masonry work to be done, new gutters and down spouts, with that failing septic system, that was a lot of fun and a lot of woodwork repair and painting. It was a pretty long list.
[0:15:29.8] JH: Then don’t forget the Norton Cabin.
[0:15:31.6] AH: That’s right, also stabilized and protect the Norton Cabin and the fun part of that was that the foundation underneath it was full of chest deep water for years, so we have to have that cleaned out and sanitized and so on. There is a lot of overgrown brush to clear and lots and lots of cleanup.
[0:15:49.9] JH: No, that’s absolutely true and you know we can’t forget that at the exact same time, we were really deeply focused on building the organization itself as well.
[0:15:58.5] AH: Which was equally important. Both were essential elements and if you think about it, the contemporary workplace had been changing rapidly even then, even pre-COVID, so that was something we had to look at.
[0:16:11.5] JH: Right and you know, there were two components that I think we believed our success depended on and the first was creating a place that would provide an outstanding experience for our guests, but the second was to create a place that would be compelling enough to attract and keep the best people for every job and for our volunteers.
[0:16:31.1] AH: Which is why we spent a lot of time putting in place policies and procedures creating an employee manual and a volunteer manual thinking about what type of workplace we needed to create to do that.
[0:16:42.4] JH: Exactly. I mean, we’re researching best practices and new ideas. As I said earlier, it was an incredibly steep learning curve and it took a lot of time and effort but we found that when we took the time to create those policies, et cetera, they paid enormous dividends later.
[0:17:00.1] AH: That’s true. It was a big investment at the time and at times we questioned the time commitment that it was involved but then we’d often just refer back to the sign that we put up in our home office, which reads…
[0:17:13.9] JH: 'It is more important to do things right than to do things quickly.'
[0:17:17.3] AH: That’s right, then even now although we still have a small organization by any one’s standards, it is a small organization made up of a lot of people. We’re the ones telling the story today but our success has been entirely dependent on our relationships with our current and our former staff with phenomenal trade workers and contractors.
We talk about our relationship with the city being important but there’s also the region and the Niagara’s Escarpment Commission are involved and all of our organizational partners and as much as anybody else, our incredible team of volunteers.
[0:17:53.8] JH: Absolutely and you know, anybody thinking of saving these historic sites really, these relationships, developing these relationships with your community early and with your staff and so far then with your guest is of paramount importance.
[0:18:08.1] AH: Of course, our donors as well from our very modest and preferred not to be mentioned, which we respect but the truth is that all of this takes a lot of money.
[0:18:17.9] JH: That’s right, oh my gosh, you know to get back to our story now, after three years of the outreach and the site stabilization and the organization building, we had gotten to a point where we have a really pretty clear idea of what the future of The Brown Homestead was going to look like.
[0:18:36.6] AH: That’s right, I remember you saying to me, “It’s time. We will know what we want to be when we grow up, so let’s stop talking about it and let’s start doing it.”
[0:18:45.6] JH: I remember that discussion, you know we finally had this great plan that we believed in and now, we needed to find an expert to tell us if we were on the right track or not and something was missing and we needed a feasibility study.
[0:19:00.5] AH: Yeah, we needed that third-party verification and it was tricky because the plan that we’d come up with was something a little bit different. It was very challenging to find comparable, comparable organizations, comparable sites and that means it was difficult to find a consultant who could probably evaluate what it is we wanted to do.
[0:19:20.7] JH: Absolutely and you know, we ended up searching through numerous, numerous options until we finally found Webb MGMT, who were based in New York City and they specialize in assessment and planning support for cultural facilities and organizations.
[0:19:36.5] AH: Which may seem to some people like we went pretty far field but as it turned out, Duncan Webb, their founder, is a Canadian with ties to Niagara and his organization was actually been hired by the City of St. Catharines to do a feasibility study for the performing arts center downtown.
[0:19:54.8] JH: I know. I mean you know, even though we knew he’d worked in Canada at the time when we contacted him we had no idea that he’d work here in St. Catharines and once we got together with Duncan, it just – things really unfolded. It was an incredibly involved process and it was fascinating for us to watch having not done this before. You know, the team examined the case for the homestead in terms of four main issues, was the market, the facility supply and user demand and then the benefits or impacts to the region of the work we wanted to do and they also did an amazing amount of research on the overall state of the cultural sector in Canada and trends that related to our project, I mean the work goes on.
[0:20:40.0] AH: Right and a very important part of that was all of the meetings we arranged I think it was over a 100 people from our own contacts and new contacts that we reached out, business leaders, organizations group were all looking for facilities who are providing services and programming, many of whom represented potential partners for us.
[0:21:01.8] JH: Oh my gosh, it was an exhausting process.
[0:21:05.0] AH: It was. but ultimately, it was a success because the team found out not only that our plan was relatively sound but they also helped us refine it and shape it and focus it giving us an even higher prospect of success.
[0:21:22.2] JH: Yes, it was extraordinary and you know once we had the go ahead from Webb we really understood better what we could do there and which pieces would be the best fit, et cetera, then we had to figure out how to design the site to accommodate that plan and remember, the site had grown at that point from just under five acres to seven and a half by then.
[0:21:44.2] AH: That’s right and as the homestead grew, the team grew and enter Clinton Brown Architecture from Buffalo and the Quartek Group from here in St. Catharines.
[0:21:55.7] JH: Yes, it was an outstanding team and after we had presented our feasibility study at an event at Brock University, the pandemic hit, so we ended up spending the better part of 2020 to our benefit to some extent working with Duncan, Clinton Brown and the Quarkek Group and they helped us to complete the space program including all our design considerations, our spatial needs, our planning and serving needs. I mean it was incredible.
[0:22:24.2] AH: And, of course, our projected costs.
[0:22:26.2] JH: Ooh.
[0:22:29.5] AH: You know, as challenging and frightening as 2020 was, you’re right, we were fortunate to be able to focus so much of our time on planning that year. We got so much done and we’re even able to work with Duncan do the developer proforma and a formal business plan that’s going to carry The Brown Homestead forward and the future is bright. Thanks Jennifer for taking the time to talk about this today. It is always fun to go down memory lane.
[0:22:53.4] JH: Are you kidding? It’s been amazing to talk about this with you and you know, although we’ve worked hard, we’ve been really blessed to have such success so far, but of course, you know the proof, it will be in the pudding and the work continues. To that end, we’d like to invite you to an event where you can learn more about our plans and what the future of The Brown Homestead looks like. The Road Ahead is a virtual presentation, which is going to be followed by a Q&A discussion and if you like to signup, head to our website, which is thebrownhomestead.ca.
[0:23:25.1] AH: Absolutely, you don’t want to miss this one. Now, before The Maple Leaf Forever plays us out, we want to say a quick thank you. This is Jake Breadman’s last week at The Homestead. He joined us for a summer internship and will be heading back to school to finish his master’s degree in public history. It’s been great having Jake with us. I can safely say that his enthusiasm for history is unmatched. It is also safe to say that without it, this podcast would still be in development rather than on the air as it is now. So thank you Jake.
[0:23:59.9] JH: Thank you Jake.
[0:24:01.6] AH: Thank you but not goodbye, because I know we’re just getting started.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:24:11.0] ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening. Subscribe today so you won’t miss episode two, The Loyalist Legacy, with Historian and Professor Tim [inaudible]. To learn more or to share your thoughts and show ideas or to sign up for The Road Ahead virtual event, visit us at thebrownhomestead.ca. You can also connect via our social media or if you still like to do things the old fashioned way, you can even email us at opendoor@thebrownhomestead.ca.
[END]