Ontario Abandoned Places will be rebranded as Ominous Abandoned Places

Van Der Hart

Demolished House in Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Mar 03 2013

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Recent status Demolished
Location # 6366

I was notified by another member that a well known residence in Oakville was abandoned. When he mentioned the name of the past owner, I knew the home immediately. The home belonged to John van der Hart, a local professional artist who passed away this past August 25th, he was 80 years old.

John could be considered a bit of an eccentric as an artist. He displayed his art in his front yard, with some self-portrait nudes. He made the front of his house a 2 floor art gallery. He advertised his "Art in the Country" with sandwich boards on Dundas & Upper Middle Road. He lived in his home on 8th line for over 40 years & made some changes that you could say made the home stand out. He built a watch tower in his front yard right next to his house. This was the beacon to his home. He along with a handful of others held out when the area was being developed. Only a few remain, but I believe he was one of the last 3 holdouts. His house will be replaced with 2 back to back homes, one fronting on 8th line, the other on Nichols Dr.

So, on Saturday I made a trip by & it looks like the demolition has already begun. I hope his daughter (also an artist) saved most of his paintings. Probably the hardest thing for me today was that I knew probably 99% of this man's remaining memories & history of over half his life will be thrown in one of the two dumpsters outside. It's one thing to leave everything for others to photograph & see, when the future demolition is months or even years down the road. But when you are staring the demolition & the dumpsters in the face, it's heart breaking to walk away knowing so much of this man's history will find it's next home in a dump.

Even though I knew this would probably be my first & last visit, I am still kicking myself for the various things I always seem to forget when making my first visit. I didn't want to overstay my welcome. Dag nab it.

It's all there for your viewing, but don't delay, the demolition has started. If anyone goes dumpster diving, save me the 10 gallon milk can.

Caution: This home is right in the middle of a busy neighbourhood & on a pretty busy street. The watch tower stairs are a little sketchy (LOL, get it), so I only made it about half way up before I thought, I don't really know this guys engineering capabilities & I was unsure what the demolition team had already started, so I decided to come back down. Lastly, I think it's a flooded basement, it looked that way & I didn't want to get too close.

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Apr 2013

Follow up to HudsonTL's 15 Mar picture of the demolished house, a week later & the tower was gone too.

Comments

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10 years ago

Very cool!!

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11 years ago

Demolished.

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11 years ago

Almost 100% demolished.

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11 years ago

I moved to Oakville in 1976 and remember when that really was out in the country.

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11 years ago

wow, what a shame - but great job getting in! Thanks for sharing this

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11 years ago

There were also a number of large storage bins, but they were all frozen solid. How they got so much water in them to become frozen & what was inside them remains a mystery to me. I'm hoping they weren't full of his art work.

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11 years ago

Doh I was deleting as you were typing Hudson. :-) re: the tower, even before I started my ascent I was wondering what the demolition team may have done to it already. It has a little bend to it & then the creaks, groans & rusted steps made me decide to turn back.

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11 years ago

Thanks GS, I didn't really see an over abundance of prints or paintings around so hopefully the majority were saved by his daughter.

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11 years ago

We were terrified climbing up the tower when we went, but he assured us it was safe. Plus ever since I has a kid I wanted to climb that thing. I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

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11 years ago

Can't help thinking that your decision to turn around halfway up the tower was probably a good thing.

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11 years ago

A truly exceptional post. Well done! Sadly, it does not look like there is any family involvement here at all. This really is one of those cases where everything in this house is probably going into the trash. Hopefully some other local explorers get here quick and document more of the 'little details'.

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11 years ago

What a wonderful thing to have that video Hudson, great work!

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11 years ago

Thanks Filper & thanks.

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11 years ago

Good work Hudson, you may be the one & only, or one of a very few that capture this man on video.

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11 years ago

Wow.

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11 years ago

Looks like it's being ransacked by the city council members who allowed this to happen.

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11 years ago

Thank you for making this a full member location. I didn't want to see his property ransacked by vandals.

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11 years ago

In high school I made a short documentary on Jon Van Der Heart. He was a very intriguing man. I am happy to have been able to record a part of his story. I have even more footage, for those that are interested in learning more about Jon PM me. Here is the link to the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1dwuF2dGDg