One Of Niagara’s Most Fearless Advocates For Heritage Preservation Passes Away

A Few Brief Thoughts from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

I know I have said that Niagara At Large will not be re-launching until the first week of September while some serious damage from this July’s flooding rains is cleaned up at our home base, but I can’t not post something on this sad news.

One of Canada’s most passionate advocates for heritage preservation and one of the country’s greatest restoration architects, Peter Stokes

Peter Stokes, renown for his work as a restoration architect across Canada and a longtime resident of Niagara-on-the-Lake, has passed away.

A truly passionate and fearless advocate for protecting and preserving heritage buildings and related properties in this region, province and country, Peter Stokes never let any level of government or any developer shut him up if he felt there was a danger that a valuable part of a community’s history might be bulldozed down for some soulless substitute of a building.

I first had the honour of meeting this great and humble pillor of integrity in 1979 when, as a reporter fresh out of journalism school and working for the once great St. Catharines Standard, he had the courage to question plans to build an extension to the historic Prince of Wales Hotel along Queen Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He called the designs for the extension “fake” and “Disneyesque,” as they attempted to replicate – not too successfully, in his view a building design from a century earlier. He argued that it would be better to find a modern building design that was “sympathetic” to the historic hotel.

Well, the then owner of the hotel was an influential person in Niagara-on-the-Lake at that time and had quite the sway with the town council of the day. So for daring to speak out, Peter Stokes lost his appointed as a volunteer serving on the town’s heritage committee, formally known as its Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee or LACAC for short. Can you imagine that? You’ve got an eminent restoration architect who played a lead role in designing Upper Canada Village, had been contracted to restore so many of the wonderful historic buildings in Kingston, Ontario and had written some of the best books on restoration architeture in the country, and there he was volunteering his valuable time to sit on the town’s heritage committee, and it gives him the boot for speaking his mind!

As the author of many of those stories on the Prince of Wales Hotel expansion, I felt bad that this had happened to such an honest person who was willing to put his reputation on the line for what he believed. I would go on to interview him on many other issues and he would be just as open and strong in the views he expressed to me on those. I sometimes found myself asking him if he was sure he wanted to go on the record with those comments, given the possible fallout that might come from the powers that be, and he would respond; ‘Of course, I do.’

That was the Peter Stokes and the person who never betrayed his convictions who I believe was as important a voice for our Canadian heritage as the late great Jane Jacobs was for healthy and sustainable urban planning. And as much as I try to stay away from cliché endings, I truly do fear that we shall never quite see his like in these parts of the world again.

Now here is a separate tribute to Peter Stokes posted by friends of Willowbank, a grand old estate in Queenston, Ontario that Peter helped bring back to life.

Willowbank is mourning the passing of Peter Stokes, a key member of our family at Willowbank and a huge guiding force in the Niagara community. Mr. Stokes served as Willowbank’s Consulting Restoration Advocate. A resident of Niagara-on-the-Lake, he was one of Canada’s most noted restoration architects.

“Peter’s passing is a gigantic loss for us in every way. We will deeply miss his wisdom and guidance, which we so respected and came to rely on at Willowbank,” said Executive Director Julian Smith. “Peter had the ability to apply his knowledge and experience across so many areas in architectural conservation and heritage. Our thoughts go to Peter’s family — he was so much a part of our family here too.”

Mr. Stokes rose to prominence with his work at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario. He worked extensively in Ontario and across Canada, and was also very much involved on the local scene in Niagara and Queenston.

He was an original member of the Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC) now known as the Municipal Heritage Committee and belonged to many heritage associations and heritage related boards and commissions. 
It is thanks to Peter Stokes that Niagara-on-the-Lake enjoys landmarks that have been restored and revitalized such as the Apothecary and the Courthouse.

You can find out more about Willowbank by clicking on http://www.willowbank.ca/content/beta/welcome/index/

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views or offer you own tributes to Peter Stokes below. Please remember that we only post views by people who also share their first and last name.)