Wellington Square Townhouses, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada
Image by Billy Wilson Photography
"Built in 1913, the Wellington Square Townhouses are five three storey townhouses constructed of orange-brown brick veneer, located on the northwest corner of Pim and Wellington Streets in Sault Ste. Marie.
The Wellington Square Townhouses are associated with the Lake Superior Paper Company and is one of the first examples of luxury townhouses in Sault Ste. Marie, constructed in a unique architectural style and massing.
Thought to have been built by the Lake Superior Paper Company, the predecessor to St. Marys Paper, so that its executives would have proper accommodation. The townhouses were built to be luxurious accommodations for people who were “well off.” While there is no documented proof that Lake Superior Paper Company financed the construction of these units, it is known that of the twenty tenants occupying the apartments for the first seven years, the Lake Superior Paper Company employed ten.
“An up-to-date block of five houses” employing “the latest ideas in heating and plumbing” is how the local newspaper described the newly built Wellington Square Townhouses in 1913. “The houses are very commodious, some of them having as many as six or seven bedrooms.” As well, each unit had a fireplace on the main level, oak hardwood flooring, an open oak staircase leading to the second level, the occasional stained glass window and a full basement. It was the combination of these interior features which made these units luxurious living quarters.
The Wellington Square Townhouses were designed by the architectural firm of Stewart Moran and Albert McPhail as one of the first buildings of this type in Sault Ste. Marie. The townhouses are unique in their impressive massing, the use of three different styles of porch design, and the mansard roof, which made the third floor functional for bedrooms. A most unique feature of these houses is that they are not built in a straight row, as townhouses usually are, but rather on a corner lot, with the units turning the corner. As a whole, the Wellington Square Townhouses are quite successful in their massing, the height of the building is similar to those adjacent to it in the surrounding streetscape.
Character defining elements that reflect the Wellington Square Townhouses’ heritage values include the:
– building’s layout and massing
– brick veneer construction with black mortar
– mansard roof
– series of modillions found along the underside of the main cornice
– words “Wellington Square” inscribed in black glass bricks in the north and easterly upper corner faces of the building
– front porches, of three different designs
– main level fireplaces
– oak hardwood flooring
– open oak staircase leading to the second level
– stained glass windows
– full basements
– varied placement of windows. – info from Historic Places.
"Sault Ste. Marie (/ˈsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is a city on the St. Marys River in Ontario, Canada, close to the Canada–US border. It is the seat of the Algoma District and the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
The Ojibwe, the indigenous Anishinaabe inhabitants of the area, call this area Baawitigong, meaning "place of the rapids." They used this as a regional meeting place during whitefish season in the St. Mary’s Rapids. (The anglicized form of this name, Bawating, is used in institutional and geographic names in the area.)
To the south, across the river, is the United States and the Michigan city of the same name. These two communities were one city until a new treaty after the War of 1812 established the border between Canada and the United States in this area at the St. Mary’s River. In the 21st century, the two cities are joined by the International Bridge, which connects Interstate 75 on the Michigan side, and Huron Street (and former Ontario Secondary Highway 550B) on the Ontario side. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary’s Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world’s busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.
French colonists referred to the rapids on the river as Les Saults de Ste. Marie and the village name was derived from that. The rapids and cascades of the St. Mary’s River descend more than 6 m (20 ft) from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the lower lakes. Hundreds of years ago, this slowed shipping traffic, requiring an overland portage of boats and cargo from one lake to the other. The entire name translates to "Saint Mary’s Rapids" or "Saint Mary’s Falls". The word sault is pronounced [so] in French, and /suː/ in the English pronunciation of the city name. Residents of the city are called Saultites.
Sault Ste. Marie is bordered to the east by the Rankin and Garden River First Nation reserves, and to the west by Prince Township. To the north, the city is bordered by an unincorporated portion of Algoma District, which includes the local services boards of Aweres, Batchawana Bay, Goulais and District, Peace Tree and Searchmont. The city’s census agglomeration, including the townships of Laird, Prince and Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and the First Nations reserves of Garden River and Rankin, had a total population of 79,800 in 2011.
Native American settlements, mostly of Ojibwe-speaking peoples, existed here for more than 500 years. In the late 17th century, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission at the First Nations village. This was followed by development of a fur trading post and larger settlement, as traders, trappers and Native Americans were attracted to the community. It was considered one community and part of Canada until after the War of 1812 and settlement of the border between Canada and the US at the Ste. Mary’s River. At that time, the US prohibited British traders from any longer operating in its territory, and the areas separated by the river began to develop as two communities, both named Sault Ste. Marie." – info from Wikipedia.
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