The 170-year-old Homer Watson House in Kitchener is the star of one program on the History Channel’s three-part Saving Places television series, which airs this month. On Saturday June 26, people work to save this heritage building from a serious structural problem that threatens to destroy its living history and the original artwork within.

A companion web site increases the shows’ impact. (See www.savingplaces.ca) The Heritage Canada Foundation (HCF) and PTV Productions are partners in this project which gives previews and more background to the series, all the while hoping to inspire you to get involved in saving places in your own community. “Historic places speak to who we are and their voices deserve to be heard.”

The Saving Places television series is about saving Canada’s heritage - one building at a time. Each episode documents the hands-on restoration of a desperately endangered but historically meaningful building – a building that tells a story about important people and events in our collective past.

Restoration means repairing and renewing an old building, taking it back to its glory days. It aims for as much historical authenticity as possible, using the materials, designs and craftsmanship of a bygone era. Restoration work takes a special kind of tradesperson – skilled in methods that are foreign to most modern building construction, forgotten by generations. But it also takes a special kind of character – to recognize and care for work done by the toil of those no longer with us. These are classic artisans, capturing the spirit, values and beauty of our ancestors through the buildings they’ve left behind.

But Saving Places isn’t just about the sentimental feelings for old-fashioned architecture. It’s about the conflict, egos, headaches and high stakes of saving a piece of irreplaceable history from the wrecking ball, while trying to mix the right kind of plaster, match the right tone of milk paint or carve the right curve in a staircase banister.

Homer Watson and His Home
Before the Group of Seven were out of grade school, Homer Watson, Canada’s pre-eminent 19th century landscape painter, was a world-class artist. Queen Victoria owned three landscapes. Lord Strathcona owned several. So did Oscar Wilde, who kept up a longtime correspondence with the man he called the “Canadian Constable”. Since his death at the age of 81 in 1936, the Homer Watson House has remained a lively testament to his life’s work, operating as a gallery, a studio of local artists and an art school.

Homer Watson purchased the house in 1883. He added the large studio room in 1893 and the gallery in 1906. When he passed on, in 1936, his home continued to be open to the public, as home of the Doon School of Fine Art.

Today, the house that Homer Watson lived in for half a century, wherein he kept a gallery and studio, and taught art classes, is leased by the Homer Watson Foundation. The gallery walls still display his artwork. There is a frieze that he painted as a tribute to the landscape artists of the 19th century, containing the names of 13 European artists and small scenes in each of their styles. Contemporary local artists work in the art studio.

Upcoming episodes in the Saving Places series, Saturdays at 7 pm
June 12: Church of the Holy Cross, Skatin, British Columbia
June 19: Tilting Post Office in Fogo Island, Newfoundland
June 26: Homer Watson House in Kitchener

www.homerwatson.on.ca
www.history.ca/ontv/titledetails.aspx?titleid=246953
www.savingplaces.ca