Which site was the heritage designation of Maplelawn from Jun 1989 to Feb 1996?
Maplelawn Maplelawn is an historic house and former estate located in Ottawa , Ontario , Canada . The house was built between 1831 and 1834 as the centre of a farming estate by the Thomson family . In 1877 the Cole family bought the estate and lived there until 1989 . The house is now owned by the National Capital Commission and it is a designated national historic site . It is particularly noted for the well preserved and rare walled garden next to the house , The Maplelawn Garden . Since 1999 the Maplelawn has been the location of the Keg Manor restaurant . Today the house is located in Westboro at 529 Richmond Road . The architecture of the house reflects a taste for British classicism , but some elements , such as the windows , are in a more local style , favoured in Quebec and the Ottawa Valley . The walled garden is a very rare feature for a Canadian farming estate . Although highly prized in Europe , they were never widespread in Canada . It was intended to be both ornamental and useful . History . Around 1818 William Thomson , a gentleman of Scottish origin , retired from the British army and settled the farm on the road leading from Bytown to the village of Richmond . Thomson and his sons focused on the farming operations of their estate , but also invested peripherally in the lumber trade . In 1877 the Thomsons sold the farm to the Thomas Cole , who had made a fortune in the lumber industry . The Cole family and their descendants retained possession of the house until the death of Frances Rochester , the granddaughter of Thomas Cole in 1989 . Frances and her husband , Lloyd Rochester , lived at Maplelawn and raised their children there ( the Rochesters were another old Ottawa family ) . The most important renovation was conducted in 1936 , when the original summer kitchen and field hands dormitory was replaced by a stone addition to the house at the rear . At this same time the garden was redesigned by a horticulturalist from the Central Experimental Farm . The Federal District Commission , forerunner of the NCC , had bought the house in the 1950s to ensure its preservation . The property was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1989 . For some years the house remained empty and the garden began to deteriorate , but in 1993 , the Friends of Maplelawn Garden , a volunteer group , began to work on the garden . The NCC renovated the building . Shortly thereafter , Peter Fallis leased the property and conducted a massive renovation ; both internally and externally . Mr Fallis invested greatly in transforming the interior of the building from a single-family residence with servants quarters , into a beautiful restaurant . This new restaurant converted the 1933 addition at the back of the building into a bar and sitting ( waiting ) area for guests . The bar had an impressive bar wood and a large fireplace that welcomed visitors to warm themselves in the winter and housed bouquets constructed from donations from the walled garden ( The Friends of Maplelawn ) in the warmer months . The western side of the addition housed French doors that led to a large flagstone patio and outdoor reception area . The patios and reception areas were extensively renovated by a landscape architect who , with the help of their team , did an outstanding job . In the front of the house , on the main floor , there were two dining rooms , both with fireplaces , that shared an elegant design that ran throughout the remainder of the house . All of the dining rooms had some two-person tables and those that could convert from square four-person tables to six-person round tables ; this was quite a unique design at the time . All of the tables had Chippendale chairs ( a variety were purchased both with and without arms and all with beautiful fabric seats ) . There is an impressive main entrance at the front of the house , but it was not used during the operation of the restaurant . The main entrance was situated to the rear of the building off of the newly constructed parking lot . There were sparkling beautiful chandeliers in each room and in the hallways as well . In addition , a local artisan produced wall sconces that provided additional lighting to all of the dining rooms on both levels of the restaurant . All of the rooms in the house had deep-set ( due to the thick stone walls ) , casement windows . They were ( and still are ) outstanding and their sills offered great locations for floral arrangements and candlelight in all of the dining areas and the bar . In order to access the upper dining areas , there was a main , curving staircase . This staircase had an amazing , ornate mural ( painted by Peter Langlois and Dana Wardrop http://www.applieddesigns.ca/about.htm ) painted on the curved wall that led visitors to the equally stunning second storey . The second level housed two dining rooms ( one large and one small ) as well as a unique , one-person washroom . This bathroom also had murals painted on its walls , but the focal point of the room was the original bathtub that was being used as a planter . There were several tropical and flowering plants in the bathtub ( which was filled with earth ) to the point where being in this washroom made you feel as if you were in a garden oasis ; somewhat of an homage to the walled Victorian garden . Also unique to this restaurant , is that the kitchen was created on the second level of the house . The kitchen was fantastic to work in as it had rows of windows that allowed sunlight to fill the kitchen making for a very cheery work environment . Initially , the hope was to send the food down to the main level on an automated dumbwaiter that landed in the bar area . Unfortunately , this idea proved to be less efficient than was expected and the device that was designed and built at great cost was never used for this purpose . The restaurant reverted to using person-power to run the food down the stairs on large oval trays . Unfortunately , the Maplelawn Cafe did not survive long enough to allow it to become the outstanding restaurant it should have been . Instead , several setbacks ( including the 1998 ice storm that affected all of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec ) , forced the restaurant into bankruptcy . The NCC benefitted greatly from the leasehold improvements made to the house by Peter Fallis . The conversion of the property from a residence to a restaurant allowed them to lease it to another restaurant that needed to do very little in the way of improvements . In the late 1990s a couple of different businessmen took over the lease and created a franchise of The Keg restaurant , to be called the Keg Manor in the house .