Jane Nicholson wins two Built Heritage Awards

By Lawrence Powell

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Jane Nicholson has loved old houses since she was a kid and has loved Annapolis Royal for almost 30 years. Last week the Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia paid tribute to Nicholson by presenting her with not one, but two heritage awards at a ceremony in Halifax Thursday evening.

She was the trust’s winner of both the Residential and Commercial Built Heritage awards. “I just love them,” Nicholson said of old buildings. “I believe they’re like people, proud and yearning to be useful and attractive, even when they’re old. They have stories to tell and lessons to teach us…about where we have come from and whether we have the vision to see where we are going.”

The Residential Built Heritage Award was awarded to Nicholson for the transformation of the Ruggles-Munro House in Annapolis Royal. The house, much loved and well respected, had fallen into disrepair. With the hard work and dedication of Nicholson and a rehabilitation crew, the house was transformed and is now a great example of historical rehabilitation.

The restoration of the Annapolis Royal Train Station, for which Nicholson won the Commercial Built Heritage Award, was an emotional decision. “It’s not rational to buy and restore an abandoned, flooded, and rotting commercial structure that nobody wants,” she said. “I had to form a company to own it, find a team who’d help me save it, and locate a tenant who would be willing to rent a heritage designated building.”

However 15 years after the last train went through town, the station welcomed more than 200 delighted visitors to its open house last year.

Nicholson, who was born in England and immigrated to Halifax through Pier 21, has been fascinated by the art of transformation for years. “I first came to Annapolis Royal 28 years ago to meet my about-to-be in-laws and I was just captivated by the place,” said Nicholson. “It seemed to be from another time, and since I have been fascinated by houses since I have been a tiny child, it was like coming to fantasyland. I loved the genteel crumbling of it all, but it made me a little sad, too. In those days, there was nothing I could do but worry.”

But when she found herself in a position to help instead of agonize over that ‘crumbling,’ she started picking up the pieces of the past and hammering them back together, believing in the significance of surviving built heritage. "Well I guess it sounds trite, but we are what our past made us, and it's important to remember that people took pride in building houses and barns and commercial buildings to last,” she said. “Their sense of what is right was tied up in those structures. I think that's what makes rescuing an old building so satisfying -- you give back meaning to the community. You help make people proud. I think that's important. Buildings don't want to be considered old and useless any more than people do. It's a waste.”

And she thinks people can identify better with some of the aged structures simply because of their size. "The scale of old buildings makes them more human,” she said. “We all feel better when we are in a ‘cosy’ environment at home and we are held to a certain standard of behaviour when we are in a ‘compelling’ environment such as a church or a bank or a hall. It's no accident that architecture is different for different things. Take the Annapolis Royal Train station for example. Thirteen foot high ceilings. For heat retention? No - for the sense of occasion. You knew when you were in that little building that some adventure was about to begin. You can imagine all the stories. I love all the stories...."

Nicholson currently runs her own company, Mrs. Nicholson Inc., founded in 2003 to buy and restore old buildings in Annapolis Royal. www.mrsnicholson.com.