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The estate has been home to a variety of First Nations inhabitants, who used the site as an encampment on one of the major portage routes around Niagara Falls.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Willowbank is best known for the impressive Greek Revival mansion designed and built in the 1830s by John Latshaw, for Alexander and Hannah Jarvis Hamilton. It is this house, set within the Picturesque landscape of the eastern part of the property, that is the focus of the National Historic Site designation. 

However, the richness of the site runs much deeper. The various First Nations communities that had traveled through this landscape on their way up the Niagara River and around the Falls, had recognized the importance of the ravine as a starting point for a portage route. There is evidence of encampment sites and the trading practices typical of an important crossroads, with significant artifacts dating back to 5,500 BC. 

With early European settlement, the height of land became an important defensive site within the new village of Queenston, founded by Alexander Hamilton's father. The Willowbank site played an important role in the Battle of Queenston Heights during the war of 1812, and the area contains extensive archaeological evidence from the war period.  

The Hamiltons, in 1834, gave the site its magnificent Greek Revival mansion and the picturesque landscape of its eastern front, creating a masterpiece of Upper Canadian villa architecture. Hamilton died a few years later, but Hannah Jarvis Hamilton continued to live in the house for almost fifty years, single-handedly raising ten children and managing the property, of which she was fiercely proud. Her mother, from the prominent Jarvis family in Toronto, lived at Willowbank for many years helping her daughter maintain the property. The two women left many hundreds of letters, which Willowbank students are only now beginning to transcribe. They provide a fascinating glimpse into the life of early Upper Canada, and of one proud matriarchal family.  

The Brights, exactly one hundred years later in 1934, purchased the property just as the Niagara Parkway was being completed. They were pioneers in both the wine and orchard industries in the Niagara Peninsula. It is fitting that they reoriented the house from east to west, maintaining the essential centre hall plan, to face the agricultural land across the parkway. The Brights transformed the western part of the site, introducing the broad sweeping lawns and tree-lined drive that continue to define this part of the property, and opened up part of the interior to create a spacious parlour with ornate cornices and scenic wallpaper typical of the period.  

After the Brights, the property went through a number of owners who made some minor changes but did not fundamentally alter the architecture or the landscape. In 2003 it was rescued from demolition, after sitting vacant for a number of years, and took on its present identity as home to the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts. The first Willowbank Jazz Festival took place that same year, beginning its parallel tradition as an important cultural facility in the region. The following year it received its National Historic Site designation. The present management plan, developed by the students in the Diploma Program under the guidance of executive director Julian Smith, sets out a clear framework for developing and interpreting the site in ways that sustain the layering and leave open ongoing.