27 April 2005
Railway Station
Havelock - And today... a lot of those freight trains
roll-on by hundreds of old community train stations... no longer useful to the towns and
cities they once served.
Bryan Oliver now with the story of one business man who saw a future in "one" old CP train
station.
They served as the building blocks of a nation... in communities dotted across the vast Canadian
wilderness.
No matter how big or how small these towns were - many could claim they had a train station, and a
link to the network of steel rails that forged Canada together in the early
post-confederation years.
Sadly, hundreds of these old wooden frame treasures have been abandoned... left to fade away with
time... venues no longer needed thanks to the development of modern transportation.
Here in Havelock, Ontario... a "stranger" to the town of four thousand residents, saw the
beauty in this former station on the Canadian Pacific line built in 1929.
Nick Miniotis and his son Stephen, saw a future for the historic building... that lay in its past...
as a family-run restaurant.
Steve Miniotis/Station Restaurant: "I thought personally that this place ahh. It's not
going to happen Dad. It's too run down. Forget it. But he said no; he has a singular vision and I give
him a lot of credit for that. And here we are. It turned out very beautiful. I am very happy with the
result."
After spending close to $250-thousand dollars, the family restored the old Havelock
station to its original glory.
Re-opened for business in December 2004, the family preserved the original heating system, the dome ceiling in the main waiting room and even the original marble walls and floors in the washrooms.
But the largest challenge was re-creating the antique french windows.
Steve Miniotis/Station Restaurant: "The windows are another problem. They were all smashed
out; and because they are french windows, you see how they have that wood in the middle, they are very
expensive to purchase. But we thought that it adds to a lot to the character of the building. We
pulled them all off. We cleaned them up, painted them. Restored all the windows and then put them back
in."
The Station Restaurant was, in part, an attempt to preserve history.
Steve Miniotis/Station Restaurant: "I think that my father believes that Canada is rich in
history, and it is unfortunate that people label us as the young nation, and they don't recognize that
Canada actually has a lot of history worth cultivating and saving, salvaging."
Salvaging an important focal point in the community... and for life long Havelock residents, like Bob
Jones... the Station Restaurant will again attract locals and visitors to what the building was
originally intended to do.
Bob Jones/Havelock Resident: "It has restored a focus point in the town. The railway
station when we were kids was the place to go. Trains arriving and busy. Everything happened from here
that was important to Havelock."
Steve Miniotis/Station Restaurant: :"Pkiloxenia" means "strangers treated as
friends", and because when we came here we were strangers, but we got such an overwhelming
response. People donated old pictures, printed and framed on the walls, and they welcomed us as
friends."
And like the old Peter Allen tune goes... "everything old is new again".
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