Fulford Place - History

History

The Fulfords had a mansion built for them in Brockville, Ontario on the shore of the St. Lawrence River where several other beautiful estates were located, many of which were owned by other successful businesspeople. In 1898, Fulford commissioned their estate to be built on the King’s Highway, on the eastern edge of Brockville. Architect A.W. Fuller from Albany, New York, designed Fulford Place and it was elaborately decorated in the Beaux-Arts style. It was finished in 1901, and had 35 rooms making up 20 000 square feet. Since Fulford was an important figure in both the political world and the business scene, entertaining was one of Fulford Place’s primary functions. The house thus contains a grand hall, a dining room to seat over fifty guests, a spacious verandah, and a rococo-style drawing room for the ladies and a Moorish smoking room adjacent to a billiard room for the gentlemen.

Notably, the grounds at Fulford Place were designed by the Olmsted Brothers, and the recently restored formal Italianate garden is a rare and important example of a privately owned Olmsted-designed garden.

The property was reduced to three of its original 10 acres (40,000 m2) when George Taylor Fulford II was forced to section off prime lots of real estate to sell in order to afford the maintenance of the house. He remained proprietor of Fulford Place until his death, when he bequeathed it to the Ontario Heritage Foundation (now Ontario Heritage Trust). All of its original contents were later donated by his widow and his son, George Taylor Fulford III.