A Toronto Couple Turn an Abandoned Schoolhouse Into an Elegant Country Getaway

Architect Brian O’Brian revives the 147-year-old structure to feature a cedar and glass dining pavilion that cantilevers off the end.

Jan 19, 2021 - 20:51

A Toronto Couple Turn an Abandoned Schoolhouse Into an Elegant Country Getaway

Architect Brian O’Brian revives the 147-year-old structure to feature a cedar and glass dining pavilion that cantilevers off the end.

To start the next chapter in their lives, Ben Sykes and Erin Connor went back to school. The couple wanted a place in the country, and they had their eyes on rolling, rural Grey County, two hours northwest of their home in Toronto. While searching for property there, they came upon an unexpected building for sale: a one-room schoolhouse with thick stone walls that was built nearly a century and a half ago.

A new cedar and glass dining pavilion extends through the back of a weekend retreat in rural Ontario designed by architect Brian O'Brian for Ben Sykes and Erin Connor. The 19th-century timber and stone structure, formerly a one-room schoolhouse, proved to be the perfect palimpsest for a modern intervention.

Photo by Michael Graydon + Nikole Herriott

"I have to admit, we hadn’t looked at any schools before," Ben, a partner at a commercial real estate firm, says with a laugh, "but we were willing to renovate, and we wanted something where we could mix old and new." The structure, which had served kids from two townships, was last used in the 1960s, but the basement was still filled with desks and there was "a blackboard and a picture of the school principal on the wall," says Erin, a marketing director.