Grant House

Grant House is a building I have not featured in the blog before, but I imagine it has been in the background of shots at some point. It stands across from the City Hall and provincial courthouse precinct downtown, and was part of Doors Open. It dates back to 1875, and takes its name from its first owners, James and Maria Grant. James was a doctor who ran his practice from here. The design is in the Second Empire style, and the house counts First Baptist Church, at the right, as a neighbour. The building behind it, Performance Court, is much more recent, an interesting design that took the place of a parking lot and was finished in 2014. It houses numerous offices, including embassy missions for New Zealand and South Korea, and the glass partially encloses Grant House at the back in a way that makes the older building stand out. While Performance Court is 21 stories high at its peak, it  transitions down in width the lower you go, so the effect is that it doesn't overwhelm Grant House.

After Doctor Grant's day, the house was a university club, and a restaurant for many years prior to the building of Performance Court. Grant House is a focal point for ghost stories, as it is said that the place is haunted, though one wonders if there have been any incidents since the new developments. Today it serves as home to the Beckta Dining and Wine Bar, a fine dining establishment that relocated here after Performance Court was finished. Dining rooms are set up in the rooms of the old house, which looks beautiful inside, seating intimate groups of six up to several dozen. A main kitchen can be found on the second floor, with a bar at the back side of the main floor. When I got in, it was shortly before their Doors Open hours were at an end, and a guide was speaking with several people in the room adjoining the bar about the history of the house.

I wanted to get a couple of shots from the back of the house, which as you can see here is now enclosed within the atrium of Performance Court. It's a curious mix of older and new, but it works well. 

Here are more interior views of dining rooms, as well as a look in the kitchen, where chefs were at work for the evening hours of the restaurant. Grant House looks like it is in very good hands.