Sculpture Mansion

We drove by this house on our way to another destination in 2019 and immediately knew it was abandoned. It was in the middle of a new subdivision that was being built, up high on a hill with no driveway or lawn, looking pretty rough.

We really weren't expecting much, as it looked like just another empty home lost to development. RiddimRyder Photography ran up to check if it was open and run around to see if it was worth it. He ran back to the car to get me after he saw the beautiful piano and dog sculpture upstairs by the fireplace without venturing any further. We parked and made our way inside to take pictures and in the basement we found an art studio.

There were still a few sculptures and supplies. Being a bit of an art nerd myself, I understand having multiple unfinished projects that you've given up on or are never quite right. There were several pieces that were covered in dried out fabric scraps that RiddimRyder figured were just blobs of clay that were never started.

The more we poked around in this art studio the more we discovered. We found paintings and home made wax and cast molds, mini sculptures and larger ones. These big fabric pieces had me curious. I have done a bit of sculpting in the past and knew wet fabric scraps were put over sculptures to preserve them - sometimes a project can take quite a long time and you need to stop the clay from drying out. I decided to just have a little peek at one sculpture and ever so gently pulled the extremely crusty and dried out fabric, strip by strip, by strip. Suddenly... a dried out, cracked, dusty face of a child appeared before me. I was SO excited and amazed!

We then went through and unveiled all these works of art ever so gently. Now normally I don't like to disturb the places I go too much - but these pieces were obviously abandoned and near demolition and nobody was coming back for them so I wanted to capture the true story of this place and it's secrets before they were gone.

When we went home, we did a bit of research in the following month and looked up the name of the artist who lived here. We were shocked to discover it was actually world renowned artist Leah Vivot who had sculptures at a number of notable buildings such as Sick Kids in Toronto and others throughout Canada and around the world. Upon looking at the map where the house is located, the subdivision that is being built is actually dedicated to this artist and every street is named for her! What an amazing discovery!

Now I understand why she left a few pieces behind as I'm sure this is just a small bit of what she is capable of. She also is getting older and maybe not able to finish these pieces at this point in her life. What I don't understand is why the developer who bought this property and named this subdivision after this woman just let this place sit and rot like this with no attempt to preserve it... The house has been demolished and the art that was left behind likely was trashed by kids or crumbled with the house.

This was definitely one of my all time favourite experiences in my exploring years!