Hamilton Mountain resident launches campaign to save Century Manor

East Mountain resident Leanne Pluthero says the historic Century Manor has been in jeopardy for years, never more so than now after the Ontario government recently expanded the planning options for the hospital lands, possibly scuttling a deal with Mohawk College, the city and province.

It is the last building of the former Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital," said Pluthero. We need to save it and the land for future use."

The abandoned three-storey mansion has fallen into disrepair with its interior ripped apart, columns crumbling, windows boarded up and graffiti dotting the exterior.

Pluthero, who has been involved in saving the Hermitage in Ancaster and Auchmar Estate down the road on Fennell Avenue, says there is very little history that has survived on the Mountain, except Auchmar. She launched a petition on change.org, called Save Century Manor that has attracted 1,500 signatures to put pressure on local governments to protect the building.

I want Century Manor to be restored as much as possible," she said. I don't want the history lost."

In 2018, the province, city and Mohawk College had agreed to purchase the 12.5-hectare former hospital lands beside St. Joseph Healthcare at West Fifth Avenue, which would also include taking over Century Manor. But the province in Aug. 12 announced it was issuing a provincial order to expand the permitted uses of the land, including adding single family, townhouses and multiple dwellings for future development.

Pluthero called the college deal phenomenal" but now with the changes by the province, which owns the land, there is a threat that Century Manor could be lost to the community.

She would like to see any development include community housing.

She said the province in 2014 denied entry into Century Manor by the public. But that didn't stop vandals from breaking into the 1876 building.

Heritage activists have accused Infrastructure Ontario of committing demolition by neglect" - ignoring the building until the only option is to tear it down. The province had a property management company to oversee the building.

The inside of (Century Manor) is trashed," she said.

Pluthero said bricks on the manor, including one that is identified from 1891, has been covered up because of graffiti.

Pluthero also blames the city for failing to step up and protect Century Manor and other Mountain historical buildings.

Council in the 1970s wiped everything out," she said. They don't care. The city does have the money (to save buildings), but they don't do it."

Century Manor is one of the city's oldest buildings and an example of Victorian Gothic architecture. Once called the East House, it was home to a treatment program for alcoholics, a forensic psychiatry program and a school and treatment program for adolescents before it closed in 1995.

The hospital, also once called the Asylum for the Insane, was expanded to include the mentally ill, with the criteria that the description of mental illness" was expanded to other groups of the population identified as undesirable.

The province did declare Century Manor a heritage building. Other parts of the hospital building that were demolished over the years include Barton Building, Grove Hall and the Gate Building.