Regional The Hants Journal

August 23, 2012

www.NovaNewsNow.com 26

Letting go of a historic home

$15,000 ‘ruin’ now selling for $2 million
By Ashley Thompson
herman Hines’ stone basement is

S much more than a pickle pantry.

It’s an important part of Cana-
dian history that a world-class
photographer discovered by
chance while passing through Poplar
Grove in the early 1980s, searching for
picturesque farmland.

The ruin
When Hines first spotted the three-bed-
room house that’s now on the market for
more than $2 million, the weight of the
collapsed roof was causing the walls of
the weathered building to bow, and what
remained of the neglected wreck was rot-
ting away.
But Hines saw something more in the
leaning Avondale Road abode destined
for demolition.
“When I look at something, I don’t
always see what I’m looking at. I see what
it should be, or could be,” he said.
“I look beyond the obvious; I see
beyond the obvious.”
What he saw was the restoration proj-
ect of his dreams. Sherman Hines sits in the cellar room he unearthed upon noticing an interesting pattern in the stonework of a cellar he believes to be an important part of
“A sensible person would have just history. Ashley Thompson photo
shaken their head and walked away and
said, ‘Well, interesting old ruin.’ But, I
explored it more because I saw it as a
European house and I thought ‘what’s
European architecture doing here?’ ” he
recalled.
“I went down and crawled around in
the cellar and I was hooked.”
That musty cellar, caked with mud and
debris piled so high he had to crouch his
way through it, enticed Hines to search
for the owner of the 12-acre property that
was in the final stages of being purchased
in a tax sale for $6,800, and fork out
$15,000 for a done deal.

The renovation
It took Hines’ wife, Andrea, a bit longer to
warm up to her husband’s latest restora-
tion project. He promised to restore their
future home to its former glory, but she
insisted that not even Hines, a man whose
ambition knows few limits, could fix it.
“I said, ‘Well, because you think I can’t
fix this one, I’m not going to let you back
in until it’s finished and you can bake
bread’,” he recalled with a laugh.
Hines hired a mason to reinforce some
loose stones in the basement, and set out
to find 18th-century era homes he could
meticulously strip apart, board by board,
to gather supplies for the interior of what
was originally intended to be a summer
home.
“I put everything back with period
wood,” he explained.
“It looked like it had been here for 300
years in some cases.”
Within five months, his wife could
bake bread in a house fit for the history
books.
“She was totally amazed because it
Based on information gathered from land deeds, old maps and historical literature he’s studied, Sherman Hines believes his stone cellar dates back to about 1699.
Sherman Hines photo
looked like a museum to her.”
More than 30 years later, the house
continues to amaze. Based on land deeds,
old maps, historical documents and the
stonework in the cellar walls, Hines
believes the French built the house many
locals know as “The Mission” around
1699, as a fortification against the British.
If he’s right, Hines says that makes The
Mission the oldest building east of Que-
bec City.
In interpreting the layout of the cellar,
Hines noticed the doorways were built
large enough for French carts to pass
through. He says the British claimed the
fortified structure, which overlooks
where the Avon and St. Croix rivers meet,
during the expulsion of the Acadians
between 1755 and 1758. He suspects
some of the patchy stonework, apparent
from a quick glance at the cellar walls,
may have been completed by the English.
The reality
As proud as Hines is of the Poplar Grove
property, he’s ready to move on to his
next project.
“For me, the joy is having to search for
the building materials, to search for the
period hardware, the period iron, period
glass fixtures,” he said.
“Once it’s finished, I actually search for
something else. This one was big enough
and extraordinary enough that we made
it our home.”
The rural property, which has grown
to include a restored barn and refur-
bished Poplar Grove church, also boasts
a guest cottage, gag outhouse, tennis
court, in-ground pool and basketball
court.
Hines, who anticipates a move to a
larger Canadian city, says it’s time to
downsize now that his boys, Andrew and
David, have moved to Los Angeles and
New York to pursue their respective pas-
sions of filmmaking and art.
With his house listed a $2,195,000,
Hines says he’ll have plenty of time to say
his farewells before the house sells.
“I’m more emotionally attached to
the problem of finding somebody to use
the property as I think it should be
used.”
Ideally, he’d like to see the federal or
provincial government transform The
Mission into a museum.
“It should be accessible to the public.”
Potential buyers have viewed the
property, but no offers have been tossed
on the table yet. Hines says he’s likely to
make a mint off the sale, considering how
much he paid for the home, but he’ll nev-
er know exactly how much he’s invested
in renovations.
“If I added it all up, my wife would
kill me.”