The sloping floors, cracked steps, and lack of closets at 7 Queen St. South would send most home shoppers running.
But after spotting its $340,000 price tag, Andre Wagner considered it a bargain.
“We were looking for community, and it’s a 2,000 square-foot house with a 165-foot lot,” the Toronto resident told the Thorold News.
“Our real estate agent got us a really good home inspector,” he said, and the “something like 88 pages provided the reassurance for me. You have to have a certain amount of confidence, courage, and you have to have a vision, and right away, I saw solid stone and plinths” to restore cracked cement steps and the antique home’s overall curb appeal.
The historic house has stood in Thorold since one of its most notable families, the Grenvilles (see link here) built it circa 1856. A Grenville descendant lived there up until 1993.
Wagner considers it a privilege to preserve it, having already replaced the front porch with solid limestone steps and antique paving bricks and walls on both sides.
“I feel an obligation to the house, to bring it through the next 100 years, and I really take it seriously. The whole idea was to make it look as period-looking as possible.”
“This is the third house I’ve restored,” he added. His previous conquests include a Toronto home built in 1898 “and a cottage that was abandoned in the Junction/High Park area for years.”
Because of the Grenvilles’ significant contributions to Thorold, the house came with a heritage designation plaque attached to its front wall.
“The heritage designation brought the price down,” Wagner speculated, “because people think there will be all these restrictions. (Heritage Thorold chair) Craig Finlay and the society are lovely to work with and really, all they care about is the façade," he said, in terms of meeting heritage home guidelines.
Originally, Wagner and his wife Vicky were perusing a heritage house on Welland Avenue.
“We were walking around the ‘Thorold triangle’ from Regent to Front St. to Chapel, where "there’s a nice cluster” of historic homes, he explained.
That’s where they met Joe Prytula.
“We ran into this gentleman who was walking his dog, and it was just a wonderful feeling I got. I said, ‘I want to be his neighbour.’ We’d been looking at (homes in) Port Dalhousie as well, and I said, ‘Let’s go back to Thorold.’ I saw a For Sale sign” at 7 Queen St., “and I saw the little oval plaque. It’s always been my dream to own a historic home.”
Because John Grenville was a Thorold mayor and postmaster, the family would’ve been more well-to-do than many from that era.
“According to the Historical Society, what’s unusual is there was a closet,” said Wagner. “These places don’t have closets.”
In addition, “What makes this place special is the wood working is in pretty good shape.”
And though “There isn’t a straight floor in the joint, to me, that’s part of its charm,” he stated. “I’ve restored a new attic door with trim, and it’s these kinds of details that scare people. So much of this house was in good shape, and the interior original floors in the upper bedrooms have been redone.”
A large square space leading to the bedrooms “gives it a sense of expansiveness.”
Originally, rooms were separated with doors to isolate each room for heat, but the kitchen and dining area has been opened up into one well-lit space.
Stucco covers former beveled wooden walls on the exterior. According to Wagner, “It was a common upgrade in the mid-19th century.”
It took an estimated 20 hours to remove layers upon layers of paint on the stairway banister. But Wagner is patient, and his graphic designer wife, his “partner in sharing the pleasure and the pain,” take extreme pride in workmanship. He does as much restoration as he can, and hires subcontractors for the rest.
People ask him “What’s your budget?”
“And I say, ‘There’s no budget. It has to be done right.’ We saw the potential of it. We saw that it’s a lovely place and it’s worth restoring. It has character, it has charm, and it’s a great neighbourhood. I have so fallen in love with this town.”
A neighbour—who’s also doing extensive renovations—has been extremely helpful, and “My next-door neighbour Maria feeds me," he mused.
For 30 years, Wagner has worked helping “people with profound psychiatric disorders.”
“The plan is to rent this to someone who appreciates this until we retire,” he said, “then move here.”
“I’m 62, so I’m still young enough to tackle this kind of thing. It’s been a real process. It’s been a lot of fun.”
The couple focuses on details, and fun ways to decorate while restoring it.
He was thrilled to find square-cut nails and a blacksmith forged boot scraper—formerly used to combat mud in the pre-sidewalk era. Wagner bought two doors—circa 1860—from Artefacts Salvage & Design store in St. Jacob’s, and a rim lock for the interior door at Angie O’H Antiques on Front St.
In the future, he hopes to build a coach house, and convert his four-poster bed into a rope bed, he said, which were covered with straw “mattresses” years ago.
These types of details fall well within Wagner's wheelhouse.
“My mom owned an antique store in Windsor, so I grew up in the business, and I worked at Waddington’s Auctioneers & Appraisers in Toronto, and I taught a course in antiques at the community college," he said, "so I had to learn so much.”
