Building Styles

Odessa

This typical Regency cottage in Odessa has a stunning veranda, a regular rectangular floor plan, and large French windows with a unremarkable entrance door. There is iron cresting on the roof cap, and possibly a room or two on the second floor.

Like most Regency cottages, it is beautifully situated beside a stream and with a splendid view out the back. Unfortunately, today, the main highway runs directly past the front yard of the cottage, but this would not have been the case when it was built in the 1830s.

Dundas

This Regency cottage is made of local limestone with an ashlar finish: all stones are carefully finished to provide a smooth surface. It has the low pitched roof and expansive rectangular floor plan typical of Regency design.

Instead of a large covered veranda, there is a wide terrace that surrounds the building. The French doors are prominent, but the entrance door is more ornate than in the Odessa example with Ionic pilasters, a transom, and side lights in the Neo-Classical tradition.

Bowmanville

Like the Odessa example, this Regency cottage has a very low hip roof over a rectangular one-storey floor plan with an impressive, ornate veranda. This house is brick with wooden detailing on the veranda and the door surround.

Symmetry is essential for the Regency design. You can see from the placement of the chimney that the interior of the house is placed around a central fireplace. The house is currently in the center of a large suburb, but it would originally have had a splendid view.

Simcoe

This small Regency Cottage has most of the original adornments and is beautifully kept. The low hip roof is augmented on all sides by porches, bay windows, and verandas that are softened by clever plantings of hydrangeas and other hedges. This cottage maintains the feeling of the original Regency attitude: unpretentious, well proportioned, and wonderfully detailed.

Simcoe

Another variation within the same area is this cottage with a small gable over the front door and a barrel vault to protect the front entrance, possibly added later. An addition has been added to the back which maintains the same proportions but is made of hardier brick. Like most Regency homes, it is beautifully placed on a generous lot.

The Chantry 1850

Sophiasburgh

Philip Roblin Jr. built this house in 1850. The stones, brought over by barge from Kingston, were cut by the prisoners in the penitentiary.

The Roblins had been United Empire Loyalists who built a log house in Adolphustown before settling in Sophiasburgh. The style of this house follows the Regency style with its long line of windows, low hip roof and ashlar finish.

Cobourg

The Regency villa is not as easy to find as the cottage. This one in Cobourg has the usual low hip roof and French doors, but it has many more Classical features than the cottages above. Two bow windows accentuate the symmetrical layout. The front door has a portico with Ionic columns around a door with a transom and sidelights.

The foundation of the building is local field stone and the exterior finish is stucco. Like most historic buildings in Cobourg this villa is very well maintained.

Hamilton

Dundurn Castle was built by Sir Allan MacNab in 1835. Dundurn, the title of one of the chieftainships of the Clan MacNab means "Fort on Water", and this fabulous structure has been situated with a grand view of Burlington Bay.

This is Regency in the grand manner and it is the only one that has survived in Ontario in an identifiable state. The Regency style ran the whole gamut of design from the cottage to one of the best known of the world's palaces, the Royal Pavillion in Brighton.

Hamilton

This detail from Dundurn Castle illustrates many of the details from both Regency and Classical design which is usual for larger Regency buildings.

The top of the detail has a parapet with a slight pediment. On the other side there is a balustrade. Under this is a cornice with curved dentil blocks. The windows are tall and slender casements that are similar to a French door design. The bow window has a simple cornice, horizontal banding, and very understated engaged pilasters. The platform or plinth of the bow window could be similar to a Greek stylobate.The entire detail, like most of the rest of the design, is quiet simplicity and calm grandure.

In addition to the main building, Dundurn also has the original chapel and dovecote as well as other lovely outbuildings.

Erindale

The Robinson-Adamson House, also known as the Grange, was built as a summer house for John Beverly Robinson in 1833.

There is almost more glass than wall on the front façade with the large windows and their ornate fenestration. The side lights, transom, and windows all have decorative Neo-Classical moldings. There is also a Neo-Classical frieze under the quite large cornice. The roof is a low cedar shingle hip with two dormers.

Waterdown

This Regency cottage was built by one of the founding families of the town of Waterdown. The shape of the cottage and the roof are distinctly Regency even though the chimneys have been removed over time. The windows flanking the front door are sadly not original and thus they have large panes of glass. At one time there was probably a veranda along the front of the building.

What is missing in the veranda is more than compensated for by the beautiful front garden.

Oakville

The Melancthon Simpson House of 1839 is the first Regency design in Oakville, a city with a great many well- preserved older buildings. The tent-shaped veranda roof flanked by two shuttered French windows identifies the style. The veranda once bordered the house on three sides, but has since been reduced, allowing us to see the architraves on the casement windows. The low hip roof extends into a modern addition to the house which has the same weatherboard finish. The owners have meticulously maintained the proportions and detailing of the original building with their extensions.