City aims to save Hamilton's famed haunted ruins

City councillors will vote next week on how to salvage what’s left of the Hermitage, a remote Ancaster site that’s home to one of Hamilton’s favourite ghost stories.

Built in 1855, the mystical limestone mansion was destroyed by fire in 1934. Since then, only a set of crumbling walls remain — and a supposed ghost that draws people out in the dead of night to catch a glimpse.

The Hamilton Conservation Authority was going to spend $200,000 to lower the walls of the old mansion, which month to month get closer to collapse, said chief administrative officer Chris Firth-Eagland.

If those braces weren’t there, the building would have collapsed.- Chris Firth-Eagland

Next week, the general issues committee will vote on a plan B — spending $600,000 to dismantle the walls and rebuild them with the stones in their exact location. That will include $200,000 in tax dollars from city coffers and another $200,000 fundraised in the community.

“It’s a city-wide issue. It’s not just an issue in Ancaster,” said Coun. Lloyd Ferguson on the fate of the Hermitage.

George Leith, a wealthy Scottish immigrant, built the Hermitage in the 1850s with limestone quarried from the property, conservation authority documents show. Leith, who had five children, first used it as a summer home, spending the rest of the time in Hamilton or Scotland.

The home caught fire during a luncheon on Oct. 10, 1934, when its occupants discovered the second floor on fire. Neighbours helped carry out the furnishings, including the silver and a Chippendale desk. Determined to stay, Alma Dick-Lauder, Leith’s daughter, first lived in a tent on the property. She rebuilt a little cottage within the walls of the ruined mansion and lived there, surrounded by her family's belongings, until she died in 1942.

The conservation authority has erected a fence around the property to keep the public out for safety reasons, Firth-Eagland said. But week after week, people bend the fence and climb inside. Sometimes they spray paint the walls with graffiti. Other times, they climb to the top of the shaky structure.

This worries Firth-Eagland, who says the walls are progressively more unsafe. The authority erected wooden beams to try to secure the walls, but even those are buckling.

“If those braces weren’t there, the building would have collapsed,” he said.

The heart of the myth

The conservation authority board voted last week to rescind its plan to lower the walls, which are about 6.7 metres (22 feet) right now but were going to be lowered to 3.6 metres (12 feet), and as low as 1.5 metres (five feet) in some places.

Under the new plan, crews would pour a concrete foundation and weave steel columns into the stone work. Each stone would be numbered and put back where it belongs, he said, and the ruins could stand for another 100 years.

As for the ghost, Otto Ives owned the land before Leith. The retired British officer married a Greek woman who brought her sister with her to Ancaster. A local man fell for Mrs. Ives’s sister, and when he couldn’t get her, he hung himself from a tree on the property. He's buried at Lover’s Lane and Sulphur Springs Road. Legend has it that he can be heard at night, calling out for her.

Others, Firth-Eagland said, say the ghost is a woman.

The general issues committee meets at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 17.