Local citizens recognized with Excellence in Conservation Heritage award
The Ontario Heritage Trust has recognized the commitment to the restoration of the Ham House in Bath by Bonnie Crook and Ron Tasker with a Lieutenant’s Governor’s Excellence in Conservation Heritage Award.
“For more than ten years, Bonnie and Ron, with the assistance of their two children, have carefully restored Ham House with great attention to detail,” says Shirley Bailey, President of the Frontenac Heritage Foundation. “Many people support the protection of heritage buildings in the theoretical sense, but few put their aspiration into day-to-day actions like Bonnie and Ron.”
The Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Awards are annual juried awards administered by the Ontario Heritage Trust to recognize remarkable achievements in heritage conservation, according to a release from the Frontenac Heritage Foundation, dated Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. In response to COVID-19, this year the award ceremony took place virtually as part of the Trust’s annual Heritage Week celebrations.
“The old Ham House was rapidly declining, and even at risk of demolition,” said Loyalist Mayor Ric Bresee. “Ron and Bonnie have put their heart and soul into this project and instead we now have a new crown jewel in the collection of important historic architecture in Bath.”
Details of the Ham House renovations can be found at pages 12 to 15 in the Frontenac Heritage Awards Booklet, as set out in the Awards Program for 2019 when Ron and Bonnie received one of Frontenac Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Conservation Awards.
About the Ontario Heritage Trust:
The Ontario Heritage Trust is an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries. The Ontario Heritage Trust:
- conserves, interprets and shares Ontario’s heritage,
- conserves provincially significant cultural and natural, tangible and intangible heritage,
- interprets Ontario’s history, and
- celebrates its diversity and educates Ontarians of its importance in our society.
The Trust envisions an Ontario where we conserve, value and share the places and landscapes, histories, traditions and stories that embody our heritage, now and for future generations.