John Cox Cottage, Heritage residence in Riverdale, Canada
John Cox Cottage is a designated heritage wooden log house on Broadview Avenue in the Riverdale neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario. It combines an original log cabin section with a Victorian-era addition built onto the structure at a later stage.
John Cox, a loyalist who sided with the Crown during the American Revolution, received a land grant in 1796 and built a log cabin on the site. Over the following decades the structure grew as new rooms and additions were built around the original cabin.
The cottage stands out on its street because raw log walls are still visible from the outside, offering a rare glimpse of how early settlers built their homes in what is now a busy city. Walking past it today, visitors can see how a simple pioneer structure ended up in the middle of a dense residential neighborhood.
The cottage sits on Broadview Avenue in Riverdale and can be seen clearly from the sidewalk without entering the property. Since the building is in a residential area, a short walk along the street is the best way to take it in.
The kitchen addition was built using logs salvaged from a separate 1840s cabin, chosen because they matched the original timbers in size and cutting style. This means part of the structure is actually assembled from two different buildings that happened to share the same construction method.
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