Heather Wright/The Independent

A year and a half after Brooke-Alvinston council gave up the battle to save Campbell House from demolition, it’s still standing.

And officials with the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority says it probably will be until at least the fall.

The fate of the historic farm house at Alvinston’s AW Campbell Conservation Area has been hanging in the balance since Oct. 2021. 

The conservation authority said the long-neglected home of the man who donated the land for the park was beyond repair and planned to demolish it in 2021. 

The decision was put on hold after Friends of Campbell Park formed. It hoped to save the home built in 1867 which was home to the Campbell Family until Archie died. He willed and gave over 300 acres of it to a newly formed conservation authority for a park.

After waiting two years for the group to take action, SCRCA board members agreed to ask Brooke-Alvinston for a demolition permit. The request was turned down prompting the SCRCA’s board to threaten to take the issue to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

The lines of communication were open, as Brooke-Alvinston officials met with the conservation authority. And they discussed repairing the building and returning it to a public space. But the cost of the plan ranged between $500,000 and $1.3 million to do that. The conservation authority said those costs would be born by the municipality.

But council didn’t relent, voting again to deny the demo permit in November 2023. Just days later, they reversed their decision, clearing the way for the demolition.

But Ken Phillips, general manager of the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority, says it is not as easy as hiring a bulldozer to get rid of the home which is now surrounded by fencing.

The authority has been working with the county to remove any artifacts from the building to preserve. And it’s mapping the home, so people will know what it looks like in the future.

“We’ve preserved as much of it as we possibly can. We told the Lambton County Museum folks … anything you guys think is useful to you, please, please take and then we video documented all the rooms and everything to the best of our abilities, because there were some areas that were just not safe to complete. But we’re conserving as much as we possibly can,” Phillips said.

And, he says, there has been a delay because of the historic designation of the building – it’s one of the last farmhouses of its style in Lambton.

“Because of the heritage designation I received from municipalities sometime back, we just needed some assessments… from outside agencies to confirm that, yes, the building is as we think it is, not in good shape.”

Those experts were difficult to find and their reports have not yet been completed.

Phillips says with campers in the park now, even if all the reports are submitted, the demolition would not occur until the heritage work is complete and the campground closes this fall.