The extensive restoration Loyalist House has undergone was officially unveiled at a grand opening ceremony.
The national historic site is one of the oldest buildings in Saint John and the work done on the building includes new paint, the restoration of the coach house and servants’ quarters and the installation of new shutters. This was all done in 10 weeks time at a cost of $600,000 and was organized by Barry Ogden, who is the founder of the Marigold Project and the Marco Polo project.
“I went around and asked people to participate. Irving Oil was the largest sponsor but there’s many many others. 25 contractors and companies donated their time here,” says Ogden.
The New Brunswick Historical Society owns the building and president Kathy Wilson says the major issues with the building previously were that the paint never stayed on, the shutters had rotted, and the drain pipes and gutters were rotting.
“When they were doing the outside of the house and painting and whatnot, they discovered that they had rotted wood they had to replace some of those pieces of wood as well,” says Wilson. “So it needed a fix-up on the outside for sure and people let us know that. They wanted to see it.”
Construction of the house was started in 1810 and completed in 1817 and was built by David Daniel Merritt, son of Thomas who brought his children from the U.S. as Loyalist refugees. They started a dry-goods store here and that’s how they earned the money to start building this house.
Tune in to our news magazine show, Pulse NB, at 9:05am or 9pm on Sunday July 17 to hear more Ogden and from Wilson about this.
