January 2021
The City of Barrie, 50 miles north of Toronto, has many historic buildings, but one of the more stunning is known as Lount’s Castle.
Built in 1877 as a summer home for William Lount, Jr., a Toronto lawyer, judge and politician, and the son of United Empire Loyalist William Lount, Sr., who served for a time as the registrar for Simcoe County.
Lount’s uncle, Samuel Lount, was a member of Parliament until 1837, when he took part in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. Lount led a group of farmers from Holland Landing to Mongomery’s Tavern in Toronto. After the rebellion failed, he was arrested and hanged.
Lount’s Castle is a 9000 square foot house, designed in the Second Empire style, modeled after the opulent architecture of the French villas of Paris during the reign of Napoleon III.
Lount’s Castle would go through many owners over in the years after Lount’s death in 1903, eventually ending up as a rooming house in the 1980s.
In 2010, the current owner undertook an extensive restoration of the then-133 year-old home, transforming it into a luxury apartment building that caters to both long-term and short-term tenants.
The original 33 acre property has been reduced to a half-acre lot, with a woodlot of mature trees to the rear of the property, and surrounded by modern homes.
Sources: http://www.lountcastle.ca, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lount.
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