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The material on this website is drawn
from an exhibition, ‘Domestic Gems’, which
was held in 2002 in Rodman Hall of Brock University,
celebrating the work of A.E.Nicholson and R.I.
Macbeth. Whether working together (c 1918- 1930),
or independently, these two individuals were responsible
for much of the region’s best architecture.
The Niagara Society of Architects
chose to highlight Nicholson and Macbeth’s residential
work, because so many of their admired homes grace communities
throughout the Niagara Peninsula. These homes, more
then their still notable public buildings, illustrate
their mastery of styles, which included their Arts and
Crafts and Neo-Tudor, to their less well-known Spanish
Eclectic, Colonial, Classical and Modern. The houses
were typically well built, richly detailed, delightful
in composition, and skilfully sited. Still eminently
liveable today, the houses are also a testament to the
craftsmen that built them, and to the owners that have
sensitively upgraded them to meet contemporary needs.
A 20 minite
DVD-video on the work of Nicholson and Macbeth has also
been produced by the Niagara Society of Architects,
and is available from the Society.
Nicholson and Macbeth produced a vast
body of custom residential work. Records of the successor
firm of Baker and Elmes, Architects (now part of Quartek
Group Inc.), include over seventy-five houses, of which
fifty were reviewed for the exhibition, and thirty-two
were photographed. Due to the destruction and loss of
records, there are many other houses which may have
been designed by Nicholson and/or Macbeth - one of the
ongoing questions about the built environment in the
Niagara area. Most of the houses included in the exhibition
are located in the Niagara Peninsula - including St.Catharines,
Port Dalhousie, along the shores of Lake Ontario, in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Queenston, Fonthill, Welland, Port
Colborne, and on the north shore of Lake Erie. The exhibition
contained models, original drawings and photographs.
Contemporary photographs, by Les Andrew, show the houses
in their current condition: most are meticulously maintained.
Although the exhibition focused primarily
on Nicholson and Macbeth’s residential buildings,
they also built public buildings, schools, churches
and a variety of institutional, commercial and industrial
buildings. Major buildings included the YMCA (now demolished),
the Land Registry Building, the Odd Fellows Hall, the
Merriton Public Library, the St.Catharines General Hospital,
Lookout Point Gold Club, the Orchard Inn, Old Glenridge
School, and the St.Catharines City Hall. In the exhibition,
a sampling of such non-residential buildings was illustrated
with black and white photographs and original drawings.
The exhibition concluded with a collection
of original design sketches and working drawings, ‘taped’
to the wall as if in the architects’ office for
review. Included were coloured studies for the elevations
of the Allan Macbeth residence in Chillicothe, Ohio;
living room and exterior studies of the R.C.Yates summer
residence on Lake Erie, 1938; and details of the Mackendrick
residence in Oakville, 1935. Robert Macbeth’s
full scale drawings for mouldings and brackets over
the front entrance door, full scale stair details, bay
window details and front elevation sketches are only
a small sample of the full set of drawings produced
for the construction of this house. The soft pencil
sketches indicated the care taken and level of detail
these two architects used to bring their design ideas
to life.
The exhibition was well received
and a smaller version was on display in St.Catharines
City Hall in 2005-6.
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^
Now, in the
early part of the twenty-first century, we take moderate-sized
owner-occupied houses as commonplace. Yet such houses
are a relatively recent phenomena: historically, western
civilisation consisted of vast numbers of very poor
rural individuals who were lucky if they inhabited a
turf hut, a few very wealthy households, and a small
urban middle-class. Moreover, until the First World
War, even substantial houses were rented - in the United
Kingdom, in 1900, only about ten percent of houses were
owner-occupied. With the emergence of a large and prosperous
middle class in the Victorian era, and the concept of
urban home-ownership, questions arose about the nature
of dwellings for a group of people with discretion and
purchasing-power - what form should houses take?
In Britain, in the last few decades
of the nineteenth century attempts were made to address
these questions. Through the Victorian period there
was a considerable amount of experimentation: the vast
catalogue of different historical styles is one legacy
of this. One of the main influences was John Ruskin
(1819-1900), a social reformer, writer and critic, who,
among other things, expounded on architecture. As one
might expect of a Victorian, he related architecture
and morality - seeing building form both as a contributor
to social morality, but also reflecting it. There was
a concern about mass production and a desire to return
the worker to having pride in his work. Some of these
explorations were manifested as the ‘Arts and
Crafts’ style. This movement, which emerged in
the last quarter of the 19th century, had origins in
the thoughts of Ruskin, and in the work and writings
of William Morris, whose firm offered wallpapers, fabrics
and carpeting. As well, it contained an element of reaction
against the over-stuffed formality and ornamental excesses
of the nineteenth century. Although it started in Britain,
the Arts and Crafts movement underwent considerable
development in the United States, appearing there in
forms such as the ‘Mission’, ‘Shingle’,
‘Craftsman’ ‘Cottage’ and ‘Queen
Anne’ styles. A number of architects rose to prominence
with work relating to the Arts and Crafts beliefs, including
Charles F.A.Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Baillie
Scott, Philip Webb, and in the United States Bernard
Maybeck and Greene & Greene.
The boundaries of the Arts and Crafts
are very blurred, and whether or not something is ‘Arts
and Crafts’ can often be debated. This is because
unlike most ‘styles’, such as the Romanesque
or Baroque, it is not a set of specific design features
but an attitude or philosophy, and it can embrace other
styles. A fundamental part of the movement was a reaction
to the uniformity and soul-lessness of machine-made
components. The movement conceived of a spiritual relationship
between man and the environment, which was somehow expanded
by the use of hand-make building elements. The Arts
and Crafts did not reject machine made objects, so in
a less pure form building elements might be machine-made
but appear to be hand-made. The blurring of boundaries
often results because most historical styles, at least
prior to the late twentieth century, were reflections
of hand-made technologies - are the quasi-Tudor of many
of the Nicholson and Macbeth houses to be considered
‘pure’ arts and crafts or not?
It probably doesn’t matter how
the Nicholson and Macbeth houses are classified. Classification
in any field is usually only a prelude to a fuller understanding,
and certainly the different interpretations and philosophical
currents in the movement makes things very difficult.
Nicholson and Macbeth were outsiders
to the mainstream arts and crafts movement - simply
being in Canada ensured that. Not unexpectedly, architectural
thought had moved on in more cosmopolitan centres by
the time the Niagara houses were created - rather as
one can find Regency houses in the Niagara area - built
decades after the Regency had disappeared in Britain.
Perhaps this makes the houses even more interesting
to explore and understand.
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^
 The
Architects: Arthur Edwin Nicholson (1881-1945)
Arthur Nicholson was born in Buffalo,
New York, on June 22, 1881, the eldest son of Edwin
and Alice Nicholson. His father was a prominent builder
and contractor, with a planning mill and lumberyard
at the corner of George and Edmund Streets in St.Catharines.
After attending public schools in St.Catharines, Arthur
decided to adopt the profession of architecture, and
was articled to the firm of Gordon & Helliwell in
Toronto. He was admitted to membership in the Ontario
Association of Architects in April 1905.
Subsequently, he set up a partnership
with his father in St.Catharines. This firm was known
as Edwin C.Nicholson & Son. During this time he
worked on several projects, some of which are: Colonel
W. Leonard residence, 75 Yates Street (1913): This was
a large brick, stucco and half-timber residence which
was demolished in 1938 and the seven-acre estate sub-divided.
Band Stand, Montebello Park (1905):
This was copied from a band stand in Buffalo, New York
Old Grandstand for the Henley Regatta course Judge Campbell
house on Church Street. This was demolished for the
construction of the new Federal Building.
This partnership was dissolved in
October 1912, and Arthur started his own firm, which
moved to 15 Queen Street, on the second floor of the
Standard Block. As business grew, he moved his office
to 46 Queen Street, a small one-storey stucco office
next to the YMCA, from which the practice was continued
until Nicholson’s death in 1945.
One of his first projects was the
Maple Leaf Milling Company grain elevator, built in
1913, on the pier in Port Colborne. Other projects included:
Albert Fitfield residence, on Ontario Street.
The south gate entrance to Victoria Lawn Cemetery,
on Queenston Street Welland
Vale Manufacturing Company at Lock 2 of the old Welland
Canal.
Nicholson made several study trips
to England and Scotland. Sometime in 1918-1919 he formed
a partnership with Robert I. Macbeth, which continued
until 1930. Evidence suggests that some financial hardship,
not uncommon during the early depression years, accompanied
this. After the dissolution of Nicholson and Macbeth,
he continued to practice as Arthur E.Nicholson. He was
the consulting architect for McKinnon Industries (later
General Motors), and Thompson Products (later TRW).
Arthur Edwin Nicholson died on February
2, 1945. Unfortunately his drawings were destroyed after
his death, so there is very little drawing evidence
of his later work.
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Robert
Ian Macbeth (1891-1978)
Robert Ian Macbeth was born in March
15, 1891 in Inverness, Scotland. His father, Robert
John Macbeth, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British
Architects, was a very well known and respected architect,
practising in the north of Scotland. He designed many
churches and other large buildings. His son, Robert
apprenticed with him, and worked on Andrew Carnegie’s
Skibo Castle at Dornoch, County Sunderland. Upon the
sudden death of his father in 1912, Robert, then in
his late teens, completed the castle.
Prior to his death, Robert John Macbeth
had won an international competition for the Scottish
National Memorial to King Edward VII, to be built at
Holyrood, in Edinburgh. Given the death of the senior
Macbeth and the young age of Robert Ian, the project
was awarded to another architect.
In May 1914, Robert, together with
his mother, brothers Ronald and Stewart, and his sister
Margaret, emigrated to Canada, buying a farm on Erion
Road in Louth township. The family farmed for several
years and Robert apprenticed himself to Arthur Edwin
Nicholson, then one of the leading architects in the
Niagara Peninsula. The firm remained in Nicholson’s
Queen Street offices until the partnership was dissolved.
Macbeth set up his own practice in 1930 in the sunroom
at the rear of his residence at 104 Queen Street.
Macbeth found business administering
the work of American architects who were building large
summer homes along the north shore of Lake Erie, for
their wealthy clients. This ultimately led to getting
work directly from American clients. Many of the large
white colonial summer houses can still be seen along
the Lake Erie shore road. The firm designed many outstanding
buildings, one of which is the St.Catharines City Hall,
built in 1937. With a sense of humour, he apparently
did not reveal the use of marble for the front staircase,
anticipating that the city fathers would delete it to
save money. In 1941 Macbeth was made a Fellow of the
Ontario Association of Architects.
During the war, Macbeth was heavily
involved in the construction and administration of wartime
housing throughout Ontario. After the war, he created
a short lived partnership with Wilson Salter and Arthur
B. Scott, known as Macbeth, Salter and Scott. In 1949
the firm of Macbeth and Williams was formed, and continued
until 1964, when it became Macbeth, Williams, Woodruff
& Hadaway. Robert Macbeth retired in 1964 and was
made an honorary member of the Ontario Association of
Architects in 1978, dying in March of that year.
^
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 Living
with a Nicholson and Macbeth House
It is one thing to admire the work
of Nicholson and Macbeth, but it yet another experience
to live with one of their houses. We moved into the
1923 Donald F. Pepler house in 2005. When we bought
it, there was nothing said about its heritage - perhaps
the real estate agents felt there was nothing to be
gained by mentioning it.
We quickly found out that we had bought
something special - there is almost an informal club
of people who own Nicholson and Macbeth houses, and
we have since been inside a surprising number of them.
Perhaps people who own these domestic gems want to share
the experience. But the experience is not one of mere
brute possession - for most owners the houses impose
a wonderful kind of responsibility. Showing the house
to someone is not an act of personal display, but an
attempt to share the wonder of what is actually possible
in domestic architecture.
Of course, the world has changed dramatically
since these houses were built. No matter how much one
pushes the call bells, the servants never appear. In
some cases you just accept the situation, but all of
these houses have had to adapt and change. But each
time you touch a domestic gem, you confront a number
of questions: ‘is this really necessary?’,
‘is what I am doing in keeping with the spirit
of that was associated with the creation of the house’,
‘is this in keeping with whatever time period
was originally being alluded to? (ours is one of the
quasi-Tudor houses), and ‘what do I try to keep?’
It is possible to engage in a battle of wills with these
houses, but when it is over the house probably will
win.
Upon moving in, we quickly found that
the neighbours also have expectations: our’s did
not appreciate the metal venetian blinds installed by
the previous owners. Our neighbours were pleased when
we told them they would go - and they are slowly disappearing,
being replaced by more historically suitable window
treatments.
We often wonder what happened so that
so many thoughtful houses were created over the period
of a decade or so. It seems unlikely that anyone in
eighty years time will be celebrating the domestic architecture
of our decade. One of the main aspects people comment
on is the attempt to make the houses appear smaller
than they are, which seems distinctly in contrast to
more recent attempts to display size - and presumably
wealth. This is very common in Nicholson and Macbeth
houses, but can also be noted in houses of the times,
in other areas of Canada.
Perhaps living in a domestic gem is
not for everyone. But for the few who can actually live
in such a house, every day brings that breathtaking
experience as one mounts the stairs and contemplates
what previous generations created.
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Yates
Street, St. Catharines, Ontario
Ten Yates Street houses were included
in the exhibit. These were built over a fifteen year
time period, and might be classified into three styles:
(i) the “Arts and Crafts /
Tudor” houses for Donald F. Pepler (21 Yates
Street) and Henry Taylor (23 Yates Street) built in
1922-23;
(ii) the “Spanish Eclectic”
house of Arthur W. Bate (35 Yates Street) of 1923,
and
(iii) the white somewhat “Modern”
house of W McNamera (41 Yates Street) of 1937. Drawings
for the Cecil G.Horton residence at 59 Yates Street,
illustrated the sometimes dramatic changes that occur
through the design process.
^
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Eight of the twenty (or more) Nicholson
and Macbeth houses in this neighbourhood were included
in the exhibition.
^
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