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Hermitage ruins remake ‘too pristine,’ authority told
(Ancaster News, Ricchard Leitner, May 1 2014)

They’re ruins and should look like it.

That’s the advice the Hamilton Conservation Authority is being given as it seeks a heritage permit to lower the crumbling walls of Ancaster’s Hermitage ruins.

Wilfred Arndt, a member of the city’s heritage permit review subcommittee, told authority officials last week their proposal to cap the lowered walls will make the remnants of the 19th century fire-destroyed stone mansion too symmetrical.

The plan would preserve the Sulphur Springs Road ruins’ distinctive arched entranceway but cut other sections to a height of 1.2 metres or less — down from about 11 metres.

“I’m in agreement that we need to do something to bring it to a safe level,” Arndt said. “The only thing that I find so offensive is it looks too pristine. It doesn’t look like a wall that was anything else other than nicely capped.”

Committee chair Michael Adkins also found the end result — or at least an artist’s rendering of it — resembles “the Hermitage repaired,” comparing it to Mayan ruins he’s visited.

“If you go to Belize, you can go on the ruins and you take your life in your hands if you climb on, or if you go to Guatemala and go toTikal. I’ve been to both. They’re exciting because they’re ruins,” he said.

“They’re trying to stabilize them, but they’re not Disneyfied and repaired too much.”

Read it in full here.