Port Picton

Historic buildings relocated as development begins

The first phase of the $200-million project to develop the property around the Claramount Inn in Picton is well under way. When complete, the development will have 180 residential units, restaurants and fitness facilities, as well as a network of walkways connecting publicly accessible parks and a waterfront boardwalk. Developer David Cleave said this was a very complicated site to work with. “It had a lot of environmental protection notes on it, and our environmental impact study showed a lot of wildlife around it, so we were very conscious of that, and came to where we could protect the complete shoreline and at the same time bring a beautiful residential project to the town,” he said. During the development process, they realized that one proposed building had to be moved away from the neighbours to give them a larger side yard clearance. This led to a laneway being repositioned and necessitated that the carriage house be moved out of the way. Cleave had also purchased the historic Taylor House at 101 Bridge Street, and decided that it should be repositioned as well to provide room for an expansion of the Claramount. Over the past three weeks, a building moving company based in Ottawa moved both buildings from their original locations to a new position closer to the road. In preparation, the utility connections to both buildings had to be removed, and holes were punched through the foundations for steel support girders to be installed. With the foundation removed and a set of massive wheels supporting the girders, a powerful truck then slowly inched the buildings to their final location. It was very much like a choreographed dance. The truck would move a short distance, then a crew would adjust the alignment of the wheels to head towards the desired direction, and the process would repeat.

The buildings are positioned over new footings and then the foundation is built up to support them. “The company did a beautiful job, and I’m very pleased with how the buildings sit, and I think they’re going to look like they’ve been there for a hundred years,” said Cleave.

For Cleave and his wife, Nancy, preserving historic buildings is a high priority. “We’ve been doing this for 35 years, and when we’re building we try to bring as much heritage as we can in nod to how beautiful our town is in the historic architecture that we have,” he said. “The Taylor House falls right in that 1830s category and it was super important for us. Not only that, Doc Taylor was a local doctor-surgeon in Prince Edward County for many years and raised his family here. It was a really proud house with its veranda in really good shape. The interior is absolutely beautiful, and it’s fully dressed inside. When it sits back on its foundation and we get the porch back on it, it will look like it was where it sat 100 feet away.” Cleave also engaged the services of Lindsay Reid from Branch Architecture to provide a report on the significance of the Claramount and the Taylor House. One of the significant items identified was the stone fence that had fallen into disrepair. Its original location close to the road subjected it to winter damage from snow being piled up against it. “We decided to move the fence back from the sidewalk and create new planting areas,” said Cleave. “We’re going to rebuild that wall with the original stone and it will tie in to the Taylor House and the carriage house very nicely.”

An important part of the development is to provide public access to the parks and the waterfront boardwalk. There will eventually be three parks that will be conveyed to the municipality. There will be a large park behind the Claramount that will look onto the mouth of the harbour, a parkette near the docks, and a large park at the boat launch that will have approximately 200 feet of shoreline. “Scott Wentworth and his team have done an amazing job of putting together all those landscape architecture fitted in to our site plans “ said Cleave. The COVID-19 pandemic did slightly affect the construction schedule. The civil side of the project was shut down for five weeks, as it was deemed non-essential, but they were back in operation on June 1. “We’ve been working longer and harder to get work back to our schedule for fall. We’re anticipating our infrastructure to be in by September,” said Cleave. There has been a lot of interest in the project, with over 100 potential buyers registering. It is expected that sales will open in mid-July. “The Claramount will be the epicentre for the overall development. We’re going to add in 15,000 square feet of building on two floors that will wrap around the rear of the Claramount, keeping it proud as the ceremonial entrance. It will house a new restaurant, pub, dancing, swimming pool and fitness centre. We’re super excited about this, and there will be lots of things for people to do when we are up and running in about a year or so.” For more details, please visit portpicton.ca.