Park House National Historic Site of Canada

Designated in 2018, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recommended Park House for designation because:
• it is a rare example of a once-common colonial building type found in settlements and fur-trading posts across colonial North America. Its asymmetrical design, center-passage plan and French-framed grooved post construction are rooted in a common French-Canadian vernacular architectural language;
• one of the oldest houses in the region, the Park House has a long association with fluctuations in the economic history of the transborder region in Southern Ontario. Its early use by transplanted Detroiters and transformation by the Park Brothers in the context of the local shipping industry attest to the history of settlement around Windsor, where colonial power struggles were manifest not only in fluctuating borders but also in the architecture and landscapes of the region;
• it has long been contended that this combined dwelling and warehouse was floated down the Detroit River to Upper Canada by its Loyalist owners when Detroit was handed over to the Americans by the British in 1796.

Source: HSMBC, minutes, December 2017.