The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

economist sunsuntribune community saturday july 30 2005 by simone joseph staff writer when patty loveland- gutzke first visited kathleen mckays house in unionville about 12 years ago she discovered the woman who was old and frail at the time had stored valuable group of seven paintings in her bathtub ms mckay ended up donating the collection of 67 varley paintings and her house to the town of markham on the condition a gallery be built for the collection ms lovelandgutzkes dream of building a gallery and restoring a historichome has come true the frederick horsman varley art gallery was built in 1997 thanks to an endowment of about 1 mil lion from ms mckay nearly enough money has been raised to renovate the mckay house thanks to 175000 from the ontario heritage foundation 69000 from the town of markham and a 75000 fundraiser held last year but 70000 is still needed to restore the garden money ms love- iandgutzke and fellow volunteers hope to raise in a campaign cur rently under way more people understand the importance of restoring and main- tairiihg historic sites according to markham historian lome sniith he pointed to the pppularityof a neigh bourhood of historic homes known as ivfefkhafti heritage estates it- is perceived as valuable to have a restored building thirty years ago that- feeling didnt exist the sentiment was oh its an old building lets get rid of it he said legislation has also changed to protect historic buildings the ontario heritage act was amended in april to give the province and municipalities power to prevent demolition of heritage buildings prior to this the government could delay but not prevent demolitions but while the attitude toward restoring historic buildings and the legislation protecting v them has improved there is not enough york regions historical jewels crumbling from lack of funding staff photosusie kockerscheidt executive director jan emonson shows some of the deterioration in the exterior of the sharon temple the roof and windows of the building one of yorks leading tourist attractions also need repairs funding to support restoration proj ects according to jan emonson executive director of the sharon temple museum society ms emonson stands near the centre of the sharon temple just north of newmarket and looks at the ceiling i draw your attention to the plaster coming down here she says pointing out a spot where the plaster has disappeared revealing thin strips of wood sharon temple was voted most popular tourist attraction this year by the york region newspaper groups readers choice survey it was also a popular tourist attraction in die 19th century arid well into the 20th century and has been recog- nized as a national historic site by the federal government because of its unique architecture unfortunately this notoriety does not necessarily translate into funding the temple requires clbse to 1 million in repairs and has needed this upgrading for at least five years without the repairs an importaht piece ofhistory could be lost ms emonson said there will be ongoing deterio ration of thebuilding over time we can lose parts of the building diat cannot be replaced the longer we put things off the more expensiveit is to repair said ms emonson ms- emonson believes lack of funding is an obvious obstacle heritage canada offers match ing funds programs but that means a building must have at least 50 per cent of the funding up front she said in the past more provincial grants were available the ontario heritage foundation used to be a major source of funding giving the temple 300000 in the 90s for its last restoration but since then it has drastically decreased its funding there have been cutbacks to all aspects of cultural funding in the last 15 years ms emonson said at the municipal level funding has increased the town of east gwillimbury doubled its commit ment from 6000 last year to 12000 this year a generous amount for the council of a small district but hardly enough to cover n the 1 million cost aurora resident susan macdon- ald believes governments are too shortsighted in their attitude toward preserving historical build ings she and a team of researchers and activists had4o work hard to convince politicians and staff in vaughan her relatives home at 121 centre st known as four elms needed restoration the home was once owned by artist james edward hervey jeh yiacdorialda founding member of the group of seven the property was designated under the ontario heritage act in 1983 but wasnt maintained for about 20 years before msmacdohald and die rest of the restoration and research committee got involved ms macdorialds believes politi- ciaris need to change tiieir attitude they leave them historical buildings too long they sit there arid sit there and the damage only gets worse the longer tiiey leave it die more expensive it will be to do repairs holding meetings in historic buildings rather than boardrooms would raise die profile of these buildings msmacdonald said ms emonson couldnt agree more quality of life is not just making sure we have good roads and- sewage systems but it is making sure you have cultural offerings too she said y r4t v a fer 7 j2i x simply the best xtr i j hwy7e i 3150 highway 7 east unit 1 markham ontario l3r 5a1 9059469466