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Say goodbye to the Elmwood. The yellow Victorian-era home on the corner of South and Barrington is being torn down and replaced with a six-storey mixed-use development.
Principal Developments, owned by Paul, Renée and Peter Metlej, wants to build 42 residential units with 8,000 square feet of commercial space at 5185-5189 South Street.
It’s the latest razing of old or historic homes to have members of the public wondering whether Halifax’s urban growth spurt is trading charm for banality.
“The proposed replacement building is bland, and appears to be of low architectural quality,” reads a post on the website for the newly-formed Action Group for Better Architecture in Nova Scotia. “It would work equally well on any similar lot in the immediate neighbourhood, where many much more appropriate development sites exist.”
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The AGBANS came together earlier this month in an effort to “reach a balance of development and historic preservation.” Its board of directors is made up of Peter Ziobrowski, Matthew Halliday, Angela Henry and Ian Watson. The Elmwood is one of the first projects the group is tackling.
It might all be for naught, though. Demolition permits for the South Street property were issued back in November.

The three-and-a-half-storey stick style building dates back to 1826, when it was a smaller Georgian residence. The house is most famously associated with wreck salvager and steamship owner James A. Farquhar. A statue of the sea captain resides in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which his ghost may or may not haunt.
Farquhar owned the property from 1896 to 1910, when it became the Elmwood Hotel. The site was also home to owned by the proprietors of the Gondola Restaurant from 1978 to 1989. [As noted in the comments, the Gondola was actually next door. —Jacob] 


We know all of this history, in part, because the property was amongst the research done for the municipality’s report on creating an Old South Suburb Heritage Conservation District.
Those plans are still progressing and may come before council by September. But with demolition permits issued, the Elmwood’s imminent destruction will likely be grandfathered into any future heritage plans for the area.
For what it’s worth, AGBANS is asking concerned residents to voice their opposition to the plans by writing their councillors, the developer (renthalifax@live.com) and the architects (pauls@pskerry.ca and gregj@pskerry.ca). A public open house on the Elmwood development is scheduled for 7pm, on June 9, at the Westin Hotel (1181 South Street).
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This article appears in May 19-25, 2016.
Have look at what’s happening on Young Ave too
The B&W photo is not of the Elmwood, but of the brick complex east of this building that has already been demolished. The Gondola used to be in the same building that recently housed The Taj Mahal, and the Cellar became Tomasino’s, later Tomasvino’s. Cafe’ Chianti was where the car is parked until the fire in 2010.
Thank god. That building is an eyesore.
The Gondola and the Cellar were in another building at the Hollis end of the block .
I have never read something about garbage condo development and been like OH GOD PLEASE TEAR IT DOWN TEAR IT DOWN. I currently live in this building, and it’s hell on earth. Our shower collapsed because of black mould, the heat doesn’t work in my bedroom, there is constant construction from next door, we’ve been broken into and robbed, and had creepy men come a peer through our windows. WILL YOU TEAR IS DOWN SOONER? Screw history when history is harming you. I need to get out of this place.
@partofthelegend: No doubt the building is currently a hell-hole to live in. The problem is, if we use this as justification for getting rid of buildings, we just encourage property owners to not maintain their buildings so that they can justify tearing them down. It’s also worth pointing out that just because it’s in crappy shape now doesn’t mean it’s not possible to revitalize the building profitably.
Even if we do accept that the building is a complete and absolute write-off with no viable way of ever reinvesting in it, there’s still the issue of what’s replacing it. The proposed building is okay, I suppose, but it’s pretty bland. A site that’s on a prominent corner, across from a prominent green space, and within a proposed heritage district certainly deserves a higher standard of design. For the longest time Halifax wasn’t seeing much in the way of the development, so we were happy to take anything we could. That’s not the case though now, and I think the pendulum needs to swing back the other way (just a little bit) and we need to start asking for better from our developers.
Regardless of the current state of repairs, it is irresponsible to keep eliminating our city’s architectural heritage. Old buildings can be transformed. If we want to be a ‘world class city’ it will be by building on our unique built environment, not tearing it down to build the same things they have elsewhere.
Developers look at Toronto for inspiration, slowly erasing Halifax’s rich identity. Sad to say, the city has promoted this by allowing property owners to let their buildings fall into the ground. In the end whatever is easy and lucrative here always wins.
Looks at other historical cities like Boston and Savannah, even San Fransisco’s famous Painted Ladies, who have strict laws against exactly this sort of destruction. http://www.bostonpreservation.org
I’m sure cruise ships will be lining up to visit our glass city.
@Partofthelegend: “History” isn’t harming you, a crappy landlord is harming you. And perhaps you have heard of this amazing thing called RENOVATION?
Seriously, I’ve spend a lot of time in the building in the past couple of years, and yeah, it’s run-down, but it’s not condemned or anything. The heat in your bedroom doesn’t work? WHOA I GUESS WE BETTER TEAR THE WHOLE BUILDING DOWN THEN.
Cripes. I’ve been in much worse buildings that have undergone amazing transformations. Do we have so many good historic buildings left in Halifax that we can afford to say “pfft, screw it” because of a moldy shower and a bad radiator?
(Also, creepy peeping toms and construction noise from other buildings has nothing to do with the quality of building itself.)
I can understand taking down a building if it’s unfit to live (mold, structural issues, etc), but if you can renovate and keep the face or frame of the building to capture the history/nostalgia…why tear it down
They can get more square footage from losing the facade which is set back significantly from the sidewalks. That, and it’s a wooden structure which is rotting; nothing to save.
It’s the people who won’t be around in 20 years who make such a fuss over these things. They have no sense of progress, insight or vision. They fear change will take their lives FFS.
This is not about you; it’s about the future of the city.
that new building is gorgeous though
Actually the Gondola restaurant was in the next building down the street , the owners lived in this one
Live in a building neglected by a bad landlord? Raise your hand if that has ever happened to you *and* you actually called the Tenancy Board and followed through on your rights as a tenant. I’m not saying no one did this in this building. It’s a rare thing for people to do that. Had they, their building might have been repaired properly and the owners held accountable. The city is not interested in saving historic houses, especially ones that have has apartments/rooms. They fight over owners who have rooming houses and affordable housing (and who ensure their spaces are fit for living) to the point of fudging their own by-laws and lawyering up when the by-laws are unclear instead of finding viable solutions working together with people. Instead the city welcomes condos and new construction to be placed on historic sites instead to give them more tax funds. You can have progress *and* historic buildings. Many countries around the world do it. The Morris Building, The Roy Building, The Denis Building, the ones where the RBC and Subway are on Hollis Street. The buildings on Granville Street. Let’s leave the face (or something else that looks like it on front) and gut everything else. When is the city going to care? Let’s vote em out!
It’s time for city council to get a back bone and say no to issuing these permits? Once the permits are granted, what can be done then?. I don’t even live in Halifax, but if I did I would be outraged that all these beautiful historic houses are being torn down. Have any members of council ever travelled to Savannah, Georgia? The reason tourist go there is to see all of the historical homes, that have been saved and restored. Who wants to visit a city filled with plain, unattractive buildings like the one proposed to replace this once gorgeous house?
I can see this ‘new’ building ,run down & an eyesore in 30 years, also, because nobody cares. Then what? Another abomination?
It is a shame the neglect does this to the wonderful old buildings, but we have to become modern in this day and age. If the buildings are falling apart, then we have to replace them. What i do not like in these situations, is that the new building will be unaffordable to the people working the shitty shifts. People with minimum wage need places to stay and live.
@sblanch
Developers in Halifax aren’t tearing down buildings because they’re looking to places like Toronto for inspiration. Haligonians seem to have this weird idea if Toronto as some featureless city of glass towers, but take a visit to Toronto and you might be surprised: there are loads and loads of beautiful historic restorations. The big shiny glass towers are almost all replacing crappy 70s boxes.
The sad thing is that Toronto developers value their city’s Victorian and other heritage architecture a lot more than we do in Halifax.
I just drove back from Toronto and those new big glass towers are gorgeous. They make that Icon Bay thing on the Bedford Highway look like a dated pile of shit.
Currently living in this building and I’ve had no complaints everything in my unit is new/in excellent used condition. How long do they have to give tenants notice before they have to move out
Its great that we have investment in the city, and the ability to create new buildings. When the Elmwood was built, I’m sure there was a loud public outcry about tearing down the building it replaced.
We have a really good planning strategy (hrmbydesign) that allows heritage and environmental credits, and its being used appropriately. I’m celebrating this. I’m also celebrating the groups that ignite the heritage conversation. It’s a balance, and important to have all voices heard.
The commentators that claim that developers are copying Toronto, or are running amok without supervision don’t understand the situation; and are really hurting their cause by speaking with such uninformed hysteria.
@golocal
Any balance Halifax developers are finding between preservation and demolition is leaning WAAAY too far to demolition. Why tear the Elmwood down when there are empty lots and crappy buildings all over the place, in some cases on adjacent blocks? Why doesn’t the city help to prioritize under-used sites or mediocre buildings for replacement, before we need to start targeting historic sites?
We’ve got a haphazard, scattershot approach to planning and development resulting in irreplaceable buildings being destroyed in order to construct new buildings that could go in a million other, better locations.
Nothing to celebrate at all.
Hahaha! It’s going to be torn down anyway, amongst all your tears; progress and economics will lead the demolition. đź’Ą
Raze it to the ground, the sooner the better. A tumbledown eyesore must be bulldozed. Sick of the whiners.