The situation is one of the most picturesque in the
neighbourhood, even at the present day, and there must have been a wild
semi-savagery about it in Governor Simcoe's time that would render it
specially attractive to one accustomed, he had been, to the trim hedges and
green lanes of Devonshire.
It must at least have possessed the charm of novelty. When finished, the
edifice was a very comfortable place of abode. From Dr. Scadding's "Toronto
of Old" we learn that it was of considerable dimensions, and of oblong
shape. Its walls were composed of "a number of rather small, carefully hewn
logs, of short lengths. The whole wore the hue which unpainted timber,
exposed to the weather, speedily assumes. At the gable end, in the
direction of the roadway from the nascent capital, was the principal
entrance, over which a rather imposing portico was formed by the projection
of the whole roof, supported by four upright columns, reaching the whole
height of the building, and consisting of the stems of four good-sized,
well-matched pines, with their deeply-chapped, corrugated bark unremoved.
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