Fulford Place, National historic mansion in Brockville, Canada.
Fulford Place is a 35-room, 20,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts mansion built 1899–1901 in Brockville, Ontario, designed by Albany architect Albert W. Fuller for Senator George Taylor Fulford. Its grand hall, dining room seating over thirty, spacious veranda, rococo-style drawing room, Moorish-style smoking room and adjacent billiard room were arranged for entertaining.
Senator George Taylor Fulford built the estate after making his fortune from Dr. Williams' Pink Pills for Pale People, a patent he bought in 1890. He commissioned it in 1898 on the King's Highway at Brockville's eastern edge; Albany architect Albert W. Fuller designed it, and it was built between 1899 and 1901. Fulford died in 1905 in a car accident, the first Canadian to do so. His son George Taylor Fulford II sold off lots to fund upkeep and left the house to the Ontario Heritage Foundation.
The house was built for entertaining: a dining room seating over thirty guests, a rococo-style drawing room for the ladies, and a Moorish-style smoking room next to the billiard room for the gentlemen. Original furnishings survive, including a butterfly Steinway piano George Fulford gave his wife Mary and a Tiffany Dragon Fly lamp.
Fulford Place stands on the King's Highway at the eastern edge of Brockville, on the shore of the St. Lawrence River. The estate now covers three of its original ten acres, so the house and the restored Italianate garden can be seen on the same visit. The Ontario Heritage Trust runs it as a historic house museum, opened to the public in 1993.
The grounds were laid out by the Olmsted Brothers, the firm behind New York's Central Park. Their restored formal Italianate garden is a rare surviving example of a privately owned Olmsted-designed garden. The estate once covered 10 acres; only three remain after George Taylor Fulford II sold lots to pay for upkeep.
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