Her family history is in the bricks of these London homes and she wants to explore them all | CBC News (2024)

Isha Bhargava · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 12, 2024 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: April 12

A quest to learn more about her family's legacy turned into an interesting history lesson for Amanda Vetland, 37, after she discovered that several houses in London's Old South neighbourhood where she grew up were built by her ancestors in the early 1900s.

Vetland knew her maternal great-grandmother was related to the Hyatt family, who built some of London's best-known heritage establishments and homes but had no idea how many of those structures are still scattered around the city.

After learning of her family ties to London's history, Vetland started compiling a list of all the Hyatt builds with the help of a local historian that she will explore with her nine-year-old son.

"I just wanted to find my roots and history in London and something that could make me feel connected to it again," said Vetland.

"There's a lot of buildings that we just walk by every day and take for granted where they come from and who built them, but now when I see some of these houses, I think about my family who put those bricks there. It's just so cool."

The Hyatt family constructed some of the historic architecture that many present-day Londoners will recognize, including the Palace Theatre, Egerton Street Baptist Church, Trafalgar Public School and the London Life Headquarters, according to historical documents. Hyatt Avenue in east London is also named after the family.

In addition to businesses and homes in the downtown and Old East Village, the family also built the former City Hall building on the corner of Dundas and Wellington Streets, and the first Ontario Hydro building that brought electricity to London.

The Hyatt family immigrated from England in the late 1850s and had eight surviving children — five sons and three daughters — as one died an infant. The four brothers, George, John, Henry, and Albert Hyatt, would later form the construction company, according to the documents. Their fifth brother, William, did not join the family business.

Vetland is the great-granddaughter of Bertha Lewis, the youngest Hyatt sibling. Her brothers built her a home that remains at 99 Oak Avenue.

"The way these houses were built, they're still standing 100 years later. They don't build homes like that anymore and just the craftsmanship of the work they do, you also don't see much of that anymore," said Vetland.

Hyatt builds were 'architectural innovations': historian

Vetland recently visited John Hyatt's former house on 481 Baker Street, which had a large tool shed attached to it that has since been converted into a separate house.

"[From] the brickwork, you can tell the houses have good bones. You can definitely see the pride of ownership in the building and I think homes like these are treasured," she said.

After posting to a Facebook community group in hopes of getting more leads about Hyatt builds, Vetland connected with Western University public history professor, Michelle Hamilton, who had been doing her own research on the family.

"They just influenced the way people could live," said Hamilton, whose former history professor, Jack Hyatt, is a grandson of one of the Hyatt brothers.

Although Hamilton was aware of the family's legacy, a recent research project curated by her students ignited her desire to preserve their history, as a tribute to her professor, and to ensure the community knows about their work.

"Architecture really reflects a larger history. They built a lot of one-and-a-half storeyhomes, which today are quite small by our standards but they were considered to be a family home with lots of kids," she said.

"They also had some architectural innovations, which mixes bricks with concrete blocks and concrete bricks, and that was very unusual in London to mix those three things together, so they have some standout pieces."

Vetland looks forward to touring all the buildings and passing her family history down to her son.

"Family and our history of where we came from is extremely important, and this made me feel proud of who I am," she said.

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