It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be loved. That’s the sole requirement to have your house listed in next year’s County House Tour, in case you were wondering. Not every house on the tour is necessarily old. It’s all about the love of houses, and the idea of home, and the way both these things endure, and change, over time.

There’s also some hard work involved: your house has to look all ready for Christmas by the first weekend in December. And get ready for visitors. Lots of them. The tour sold 400 tickets this year, it’s first since 2019.

The Vader House on North Big Island Road. (Karen Valihora/Gazette Staff)

For those lucky enough to snag a map before the tour completely sold out, the Saturday event was a wide-ranging treat, taking enthusiastic visitors from Picton, north to Big Island and Northport, and then south west to Milford and Royal Road.

Nine landmarks featured, from the intricate and distinctive Gothic Revival Merrill House, built in 1878 and operating as an award-winning boutique hotel and restaurant, to the former general store in the bustling village of Northport.

In every house, the cider was mulled, the trees were decorated, the cookies and shortbreads were ready, and the fires were lit. The only requirement for inclusion is that your home be loved.

The dining room at the Vader House. (Karen Valihora/Gazette Staff)

Proud homeowners were tireless, keen to tell visitor after visitor about their homes. Some of these had been extensively renovated, like the Vader House on Big Island, which retains its gorgeous original stone walls within a two-storey addition, and some were as close to their original materials as they could be, though perhaps none so much as Macaulay House, with its huge kitchen hearth still used to bake bread.

Proceeds of the tour go to the Built Heritage Fund, and are dispensed in the form of grants to structures needing support all through the County. Founders Stephanie Lynn, Dee Johnson, Libbie Crombie, and Marylin Lauer started the tour in 2010. It has, in the ten active years of its operation, raised over $50,000 for the preservation of the County’s rich architectural heritage.