Hello from Ontario: A Tour through Southwestern
Ontario and a Stay at Clonmel Estate Bed and Breakfast
With the weather gods perfectly cooperating, we embarked on another
country excursion, a great opportunity to show my European visitors
a bit more of Ontario. Despite the fact that Toronto has been experiencing
its wettest summer in history, not a cloud was to be seen in the
sky, and a great weekend was in store. This would be an excellent
occasion for seeing a bit more of Ontario’s countryside.
All sorts of home-made and organic goodies at the St. Jacobs Farmers
Market
After an excursion
earlier in the week to the Kawartha Lakes Region northeast of
Toronto, this time we headed towards southwestern Ontario. Our first
stop was in St. Jacobs (the former Jakobsstettel) where we admired
the various organic delicacies offered in the Farmer’s Market.
Fresh Ontario produce
Colourful peaches, cherries, zucchini, various vegetables, fresh
bread and cured meats were enticing the tastebuds and the camera.
Mennonite farmers were displaying their wares, sitting next to their
black wooden buggies. St. Jacobs is located in one of the most fertile
areas of Canada, and every Saturday more than 600 vendors exhibit
all sorts of edible goods as well as crafts, furniture, clothes
and many more.
A great outing at the market
From the market we headed into the village of St. Jacobs where
we took in fascinating information about the Mennonite Story in
the local Visitor Centre. Old Order Mennonites, a conservative branch
of the Mennonite Christian church, have been living in Southwestern
Ontario for about 200 years now, and similar to Old Order Amish,
they live a simple lifestyle that is focused on family and community.
Mennonites are selling their products
A commitment to pacifism is an overriding ideal in the Mennonite
community. The St. Jacobs Visitor Centre provides a great introduction
to Mennonite history as well as the many international charitable
activities and disaster relief campaigns that Mennonite groups are
involved in different parts of the world.
A Mennonite choir performs on St. Jacobs' main street
Following this informative introduction we then visited the Mill
and Village Silos which today house five levels of shops, studios
and galleries. Even the silos of the mill have been converted into
display space. St. Jacobs’ main street also features a variety
of specialty stores, cafes, restaurants and ice cream parlours.
Hospitality in St. Jacobs
After a hearty lunch on an outdoor patio we continued on to Cambridge,
an important Southwestern Ontario town with impressive 19th century
architecture. We admired the various churches and bridges over the
Speed River and took in several performances of the Cambridge Folk
Festival that was just going on. Then we set off on a drive through
tobacco country past the town of Simcoe to arrive at our destination
for the night: Port Dover.
Cambridge features beautiful architecture
Located on Lake Erie and formerly a sleepy fishing village, Port
Dover has a population of about 6,000 people and over the last few
decades has become a popular getaway destination. The waterfront
features an attractive pier with a lighthouse, and we enjoyed a
leisurely evening meal at Callahan’s Beach House Restaurant
on the waterfront.
The light house in Port Dover
Over a traditional dinner of local perch and pickerel we looked
out at the sandy beach and were amazed at the palm trees that adorn
the waterfront. As darkness set in we almost felt as if we were
sitting on a Caribbean beach somewhere. Apparently these tropical
trees get planted here every spring after spending the winter safely
in a greenhouse.
A beautiful sunset
For the night we retreated to the Clonmel
Estate B&B, an impressive mansion with six guest rooms dating
back to 1929. Hosts Bob and Connie Lawton graciously welcomed us
and treated us to a delicious breakfast the next morning. Freshly
baked muffins, scones, fresh fruit and a generous plate of pancakes
with a side order of bacon got us ready for a long day of discoveries.
Bob & Connie Lawton
After breakfast I had a chance to sit down with the owners. Bob
and Connie have been married for 48 years, and Bob’s family
is originally from Brantford, Ontario, while Connie’s family
is from England. Bob is a recording engineer and for many years
he worked at the headquarters of the Billy Graham Ministry in Chicago,
producing radio broadcasts and dispatching tape recordings to more
than 500 radio stations. Connie meanwhile had raised the couple’s
children and also worked for some time as a secretary.
Breakfast is served
In 1990 Bob retired and the couple decided to relocate to Wisconsin
to run a bed and breakfast. They located a property in northern
Wisconsin which they fell in love with. It had four guest bedrooms
and was ideally suited as a bed and breakfast. The surrounding area
featured North America’s largest chain of inland lakes and
offered activities for all seasons. Soon Bob and Connie got used
to their new lifestyle as bed and breakfast owners.
Clonmel Estate Bed and Breakfast
Nine years later the couple returned to Ontario because of Bob’s
aging parents. They searched for bed and breakfast properties within
driving distance of Brantford and settled on the quaint Lake Erie
community of Port Dover. They found a historic mansion, built in
1929, that would be perfectly suited for creating a bed and breakfast
in their new location.
One of the six bedrooms at Clonmel Estate B&B
A developer had actually purchased the property surrounding the
Clonmel Estate
and was planning to subdivide it into numerous single-family
homes. With the support of people from the entire Norfolk County
the Lawtons were able to stop the developer from completely carving
up the property and managed to salvage at least the portion that
housed the mansion including a substantial plot of land.
Our spacious bedroom
The Lawtons invested in new furniture, redid all the floors, spiffed
up the mansion all around and created a spacious getaway destination
with six guest bedrooms, three of which feature ensuite bathrooms.
They would have liked to add more private baths, but the walls of
the property are so thick that it is very difficult to reconstitute
the layout.
The beautiful wood-panneled alcove
In order to promote local bed and breakfast travel, Bob and Connie
Lawton founded the Ontario South Coast Bed and Breakfast Assocation
which combined the resources of several bed and breakfast owners
for advertising. Connie added that the association works as a great
collaboration, and bed and breakfast owners recommend overflow guests
to one another when their own places are full.
Store front in Port Dover: over 85 seasons of "hamburgs"
Connie showed me one of the property’s most famous treasures:
a Casavant Pipe organ, dating back to the original owners. Occasionally
guests play this famous instrument whose value has recently been
estimated at $150,000. Connie also provided me with a historic overview
of the Clonmel Estate: in 1925 local veterinarian and sheep rancher
Harry Barrett found out through an ad in the local newspaper that
he was to be the beneficiary of an unclaimed estate.
Connie shows me the Casavant organ
His grandfather, Quinton Dick, was the founder of the Bank of Ireland
and had left behind an inheritance of about $2.5 million. Harry
turned out to be the rightful heir and as a now wealthy man he set
out to build a grand estate in Port Dover. The name Clonmel itself
means “honey meadow” and derives from the town in Ireland
where his grandfather had become a rich man. The original estate
included six hundred acres of which there are presently six acres
left, thanks to the preservation efforts of Bob and Connie Lawton.
Another comfortable bedroom at Clonmel Estate B&B
In addition to the large living room, the dining room, the library
and the bedrooms, I had a chance to get to know another, usually
private area of the Clonmel
Estate. I found out that Bob is a passionate miniature train
enthusiasts when he revealed that he has an entire room in the basement
dedicated to his passion. This room happens to be the former vault
of the estate that used to hide various treasures of the mansion.
Now this room hosts an entire adult model train playground complete
with a smoking locomotive.
The model train chugs around the corner
It was now late morning and time to head back to Toronto. I thanked
Bob and Connie for their gracious hospitality and for sharing the
interesting history of their spacious estate. We packed our cars
and started our drive back and stopped at an overpass for a great
view over Black Creek which flows out leisurely into Lake Erie.
On a gorgeous day with brilliant blue skies we continued our journey
through the flat farmlands of Southwestern Ontario towards the City
of Hamilton, a city with a metropolitan population of almost 700,000
people. Hamilton is primarily known for its steel and heavy manufacturing
industries. It is also an educational centre and home of McMaster
University as well as the location of the Royal Botanical Gardens.
Looking out towards the harbour of Port Dover
After a quick drive through downtown Hamilton we continued northwards
towards the Niagara Escarpment, a rock formation that stretches
all the way from Rochester, New York, through Ontario and Michigan
until it peters out in Wisconsin northwest of Chicago. The Niagara
Escarpment is a very special nature area that features a variety
of unique plant and animal species. As a result it has been designated
a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. The Bruce Trail is a popular
hiking path that follows the edge of the Niagara Escarpment for
more than 800 km in Ontario. I wanted to show my visitors the beauty
of this unique nature area and took them to the Spencer Gorge, part
of the Niagara Escarpment, just outside of Dundas.
Tew's Falls
We parked our vehicle at the entrance of the conservation area
and walked just a few steps to admire the thin curtain of Tew’s
Falls which provided a perfect view of the sedimentary layers of
limestone that makes up the Niagara Escarpment. From here we embarked
on a 20 minute hike in the forest high above the gorge to reach
Dundas Peak from where we had an astounding view of the City of
Hamilton and the Dundas Valley.
Looking west from Dundas Peak
Towards the east Lake Ontario was shimmering in the distance. Given
that Ontario’s topography is rather flat, this is one of the
best places to get an elevated view over the countryside, and the
rock platform on which we stood ended with a vertical precipice
over the valley. Given my fear of heights I made sure to stay far
enough away from the rock’s edge, but the view was nevertheless
breathtaking.
A packed beach at the Burlington Beachway
After this exhilarating experience we continued eastwards towards
Burlington, a waterfront community of about 165,000 people on the
western edge of Lake Ontario. After a drive through a beautiful
heavily treed residential area with many wealthy homes we turned
right and stopped at the Burlington Beachway where thousands of
people were looking to cool off on the sandy beaches in the northwestern
corner of Lake Ontario.
Burlington's newly renovated waterfront
We also took a walk around Burlington’s recently renovated
waterfront and listened to a jazz trio that was playing standard
favourites. The waterfront in downtown Burlington is presently undergoing
a $17.4 million facelift that will culminate with the opening of
the Brant Street Pier in 2009. A beautiful waterfront promenade
surrounded by green spaces invites visitors to enjoy the lakefront.
The new pier in the background will be finished in 2009
Our journey back to Toronto continued with a drive along the palatial
homes on Lakeshore Avenue in Burlington until we reached Oakville,
another important town on Lake Ontario. We stopped briefly at Oakville
Harbour for a glimpse of the attractive waterfront and continued
on to Mississauga where we made one final waterfront stop to have
a look at Toronto’s distant skyline.
Toronto's skyline viewed with a lot of zoom from Mississauga
My European visitors were remarking how beautiful the different
communities and parks on the Lake Ontario shoreline were. Next time
we were planning to spend more time in each community. Finally after
a long beautiful day of discoveries we were back in Toronto and
capped off the evening with a delicious and filling schnitzel dinner
at the Country Style Hungarian Restaurant in Toronto’s lively
Annex neighbourhood.
A veritable mountain of schnitzel at the Country Style Hungarian
Restaurant
By the time we got home we were quite exhausted, but we had thoroughly
enjoyed our one and a half day getaway to Southwestern Ontario.
