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3 | The IFP -H alton H ills | T hursday,F ebruary 20,2020 theifp.ca FULL-SERVICE RETIREMENT HOME 905-877-1800 222 Mountainview Road North, Georgetown www.mountainviewresidence.com Seniors enjoy an independent lifestyle with comfortable accommodations, personal care and other supportive services. Retirement living can be the best of times when you live in an atmosphere of comfort and family caring. Mountainview Residence Of Georgetown 1 Halton Hills Drive, Halton Hills, L7G 5G2 | 905-873-2600 | 1-877-712-2205 | haltonhills.ca The Town of Halton Hills wants your input! The Town of Halton Hills is developing a Privately-Owned Tree Management Strategy and we want your input. Join us for an open house/workshop on Tuesday, March 3 at Halton Hills Town Hall To register, email jennifers@haltonhills.ca Complete the survey on letstalkhaltonhills.ca by March 16 It doesn't happen often, but occasionally a single car garage gets the recogni- tion it deserves. The Barrett Barn (98 Confederation St. in Glen Williams), essentially a sin- gle car garage built in the 1920s, will be designated a heritage property by Heri- tage Halton Hills. Aside from a century of vehicle storage, the barn appears in a painting by the Group of Seven's youngest member, Alfred John Cas- son. Old Man in a Rocker is a portrait of the barn's owner, Harry Barrett, painted by Casson around 1930, after an addition to the barn to house horses had been add- ed. Today, the property is owned by two well-known Canadian artists, anima- tors Dave and Dale Cox who purchased the property, the barn and a house, in 1978. While the house dates back to the 1850s, renova- tions through the years have rendered it too far re- moved from the original structure. "Heritage buildings have cultural value," John Mark Rowe, vice-chair of Heri- tage Halton Hills, the orga- nization responsible for designating heritage prop- erties, said. "The barn itself is noth- ing extraordinary, it's an in- teresting design," Rowe said, "but its claim to fame is that Harry Barrett was painted in front of it in a rocking chair by AJ Cas- son." The current owners of the property, the Cox', made the request for the designa- tion. "Dave saw the painting and recognized the barn and he wants to work on re- storing it to the way it looked in the 1920s," Rowe said. For Heritage Halton Hills, Rowe put together a report on the Barrett Barn in the process of working to- ward the designation. "The whole purpose of the report is to catalogue what is there, and to give a view of what it looked like originally," Rowe said. "The objective is that the owners will try to bring them back to what they looked like." Though, the group can't and won't force owners to do restoration work. "Some people are afraid of designation because they look at what happens in England, where they con- trol things like the colour of paint used, but it has to be specifically mentioned," Rowe said. But generally, heritage properties are designated at the request of the owner, with conditions agreed up- on before approval by Heri- tage Halton Hills. "We've got far more re- quests for designation than we can handle," Rowe said. "We're in no rush to desig- nate things just because we can." There are benefits to re- ceiving a heritage designa- tion though. A 20 per cent rebate on property taxes and a small matching grant program. "Every year, if the owner wants to do something to the building that's related to the reasons for designa- tion, they can apply for a matching grant up to $3,000," Rowe said, adding that the money is not guar- anteed. OLD BARN HAS HISTORY WITH GROUP OF SEVEN ARTIST Painted in 1930, AJ Casson's Old Man in a Rocker, shows a barn built in 1920 that is still standing today. Bryan Myers/Torstar BRYAN MYERS bmyers@metroland.com NEWS