Local Group Wins Grant To Replace Heritage Wallpaper

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John R. Park Homestead Conservation Area as seen on Google Streetview

A local organization has been awarded a prestigious international grant to benefit the John R. Park Homestead living history museum. Windsor’s Gateway Heirloom Chapter of Questers learned recently that its application to replicate nineteenth century wallpaper for the Homestead has been funded.

Quester Beverly Cyr headed the process that required two years of research, fund raising, and volunteer commitment from the 25 member club. It all paid off when a $6,000 award was announced at the international convention held in Grand Rapids, Michigan this month. With the theme This Place Matters! Questers granted more than $100,000 to projects around North America. Gateway Heirlooms was the only Canadian chapter to receive a grant.

The project will renew the Homestead’s main floor bed chamber, a room last decorated in 1977 when there were fewer options for historical restoration. Jeff Lappan of Lacasse Printing in Tecumseh will use innovative technology to create wallpaper with a design similar to the antique paper fragments found inside a cupboard in the Homestead. “Little bits of hidden wallpaper and chips of paint are clues to show us how the Park family lived 170 years ago,” said Cyr. The paper will be hung by Chris Kinnaird of Harrow, whose family’s painting firm has done work at the Homestead since it was a private home in the 1950s.

“The Questers are wonderful supporters of local heritage,” praised Homestead Curator Janet Cobban. “Individual chapters and the provincial organization have supported many initiatives over the years including restoring an antique melodeon to playable condition, building a fence, having an oil painting professionally cleaned; replicating a window and purchasing artifacts for the collection. The wallpaper project is especially exciting because it involves two long-established Essex County businesses.”

The work will be completed later this year.