Since Brubacher House’s opening as a museum in 1979, hosts have witnessed dramatic changes to the surrounding landscape of the University of Waterloo’s North Campus.
Sports field, 1982.
”Major changes happened after our years. From 1994-2000, very little changed. The golf course was still in operation and no ‘new’ buildings had been constructed on the north campus. The north-south gravel driveway was fully functional as a second access. In many ways it felt like a rural property.”
“HUGE changes. When we moved in, the north campus was still completely undeveloped. There were big trees lining the 9-hole golf course, and the only traffic we saw was sports field participants and the odd lunch time rendezvous in the parking lot. A year or two after we moved in, development began in earnest. The golf course was razed, most of the trees were removed, the topsoil was pushed aside, and the view out our bedroom window became a barren landscape. The earth-moving was happening on such a large scale that dust covered the inside of the house that whole summer. Dishes in the kitchen would often rattle from the packers driving by (it was an interesting thing to explain to visitors). Fortunately nothing broke. While we understood this project had been in the works for many years, we were sad to lose the peaceful, idyllic backdrop to the house.”
Hockey on the pond, winter 2002.
“We also made good use of the new ponds that were dug. They often froze perfectly smooth, which made them great for hockey games and skating in the winter (even while pushing 6-month-old Naomi in the stroller).”
“In the summer of 2005 Columbia Lake was dredged and re-configured to support more growth of plants, and a better habitat for the local wildlife. The round-about at Frank Tompa Drive had just been built a few months prior to our moving in and it was one of the first round-abouts in the Region. A month after we started our time as hosts in 2004, and had returned from our honeymoon, they began breaking ground on the large OpenText building which continued to shake us awake at 6am each morning for the entire summer. The Accelerator Centre was also completed in 2005.”
“The David Johnston Research and Technology Park continued to expand. With the new roundabout and more buildings, there were issues with being able to find the museum and we had many discussions about increased signage.”
Sunset on OpenText, our next door neighbours, 2008.
“While we were there the football team returned and the stadium went up just off to the side of the grounds. Lots of buildings were added to R and T park during our time.”
“Evolve1 was built on UW’s North Campus. The LRT was also completed, with a stop in the R+T Park. At one point, there was an e-scooter pilot project that saw many people riding around North Campus on lime scooters just for the novelty, but that ended after one season. In 2018, UW installed a baseball diamond directly behind Brubacher House and later built an indoor field house where the old baseball diamond was on the upper sports field. In 2019, the university also created a disc golf course across the road from the house, which has become enormously popular--especially during COVID-19. An Indigenous garden was created on North Campus, near the Community Gardens on the other side of Columbia Lake.”
Updates to Brubacher House
Digging along foundation at Brubacher House. Construction work at Brubacher House to replace the water pipe to well, along the west wall, 1988.
Photo credit: Mennonite Archives of Ontario
“The changes we implemented: expanded the vegetable garden, began perennial flower gardens around the perimeter of the House, added two external signs, both on large rocks (Brubacher House, and Hour sign). Most people, we felt, did not realize the house was open for people to visit.
“In 1999 we developed several panels that we hung in the basement that gave a brief historic overview of the Brubachers and the wider community they represented. Years later, we’d now likely write that history differently, but we offered it because we found so many visitors did not want a verbal (or certainly not a formal) tour, but would be helped with a self-guided, read what you want, set of panels. It was also our attempt to gather materials we had researched over our time and offer that to hosts who followed.”
“When we first moved in all of the exterior windows were repainted.
“We worked with the Brubacher House committee to create the video tour and purchase the projector and speakers for the summer kitchen. On Canada Day in 2004, prior to opening for tours, we hosted a group of actors dressed in historically accurate costumes to shoot some live action footage for the museum AV presentation.”
“In October 2006, shortly after we moved in, the old wooden windows were replaced with vinyl. The roof was redone with cedar shakes and the eavestrough and back porch were replaced.”
“Once, Jacquie arrived home to find UW caretakers taking our hot water heater out for a few days. That was an exciting period - those caretakers were very surprised to learn that anyone lived in the house! The back porch was painted, and the front porch steps were fixed up while we lived at BHouse. The front porch also had some underground chicken wire installed to keep out groundhogs - but that is a whole other story!”
New wooden hooks for the basement event space, 2020.
The University of Waterloo replaced the eavestroughs with historically-appropriate lead-coated copper eavestroughs, after having replaced them already in 2019 (without consultation with the City of Waterloo), 2021.
“We installed new indoor and outdoor information panels, 2021.”
