Oakville Museum Coach House

The official opening of the picturesque, Shingle Style Oakville Coach House in 2022 marked the completion by +VG Architects of the adaptive reuse of the Erchless Estate, a cultural heritage property designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act as an intact surviving example of an estate developed by a wealthy settler family.

This ensemble of historic buildings on an elevated natural embankment overlooking Lake Ontario, the mouth of Oakville Harbour, and Sixteen Mile Creek, comprises the Custom House (1856); the Italianate-style residence (1858), former home of several generations of the town’s founding Chisholm family and restored as the Oakville Museum by +VG in 1991; the post office (1835); and the Coach House (1901).

The 5,150 ft2 Coach House, the most elegant building on the site, was designed by the Toronto-based architectural firm Dick and Wickson around 1899. The building is in three-parts: horse stables and tack area, coach storage and hayloft; a two-storey gardener’s cottage; and a linking storage area. The exterior charms the eye with eclectic features such as the steeply pitched cross-gable roof and its irregular slopes, eyebrow dormers, bell-cast and bowed projections, shingled cupola, and bay window and mullioned windows.
The project mandate was to:

• Create a multi-purpose public venue and restore the gardener’s cottage;
• Strengthen links and enhance visual access to the Coach House;
• Enhance the indoor and outdoor connection and presence of the Coach House in the Oakville Museum campus;
• Harmonize the landscape design with the larger Erchless campus and broader park, river, lake and road settings;
• Integrate path systems, wayfinding and visual accessibility from within and outside the museum campus;
• Protect the archeological and cultural heritage significance of the Coach House and surrounding grounds;
• Change the building’s use from storage to assembly occupancy.

Bringing the building up to current accessibility standards necessitated interior renovations such as door and washroom access improvements.