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The Homer Watson House and Gallery is a heritage structure and art gallery in Doon, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, which is notable as the former residence of the turn-of-the-century Canadian landscape artist Homer Watson. The building is an example of Scottish Gothic architecture.

Constructed as early as 1834, it was for a time the estate house of the Ferrie family, a group of industrialists in Doon of Scottish origin who were influential in the economy and social character of the village. It was purchased by Homer Watson in 1881 and became his residence until his death in 1936. The house and its grounds later became the home of the Doon School of Fine Arts. It is currently owned and operated by the City of Kitchener as a heritage property, museum, and art gallery which features works by local artists as well as some examples of Homer Watson's own work.

Background
Around 1800, a group of Pennsylvanian Mennonites began to settle in the area, with the first major parcel of land being purchased by the Biehn family. The Mennonites began to build farms and sawmills in the area and set up a similar pattern to their settlements in what are now Waterloo and Berlin (now Kitchener).

The character of the area substantially changed when Adam Ferrie Jr., son of the prominent Scottish-born industrialist Adam Ferrie, began milling operations there. Ferrie, who had recently moved from Glasgow to Montreal, began to further industrialization efforts in a number of different towns and settlements in Ontario, such as nearby Preston (today a part of the City of Cambridge). In contrast to the German Mennonite culture to the north, the Ferrie family were supporters of specifically Scottish social institutions, such as the Presbyterian Church. Galt, another nearby centre, was also heavily settled by Scottish mill workers, and was laid out as a typical industrial new town as would be seen in Scotland during this period. Ferrie's son, Adam Ferrie Jr., was unable to obtain land in Preston and decided to locate his operations across the river in an area he named 'Doon', located just south of where the Huron Road had its ford across the Grand River. The road to the Ferrie estate from the Huron Road would become today's Mill Park Drive.

Estate house
Construction of the house occurred as early as 1834, and the house is confirmed to have existed by 1850. The house was built with a typical fieldstone foundation and brick edifice, and consisted of one and a half storeys. An example of Scottish Gothic revival architecture, it was constructed in vernacular cottage style, like many early structures in the region, and used primarily local materials. It did not originally include its southeast wing, which was constructed at a later period during Homer Watson's residence. From this base of operations, the Ferrie family began to quickly develop Doon, with their grist mill becoming operational in 1839 along Schneider Creek to the southeast, which today sits as a ruin adjacent to a Grand River Conservation Authority trail. In 1849, Adam Ferrie Jr. died, and the estate was taken over by his brother Robert. In 1854, the Doon Presbyterian Church was built on land donated from the estate, with its cemetery (the current Biehn-Kinzie cemetery) created out of the original Schneider family cemetery which was adjacent to their farm.

Robert further subdivided the estate land into a number of housing plots, which were sold off for development. To the west, further up Schneider Creek, a number of other industrialists such as John Tilt and James Watson (Homer Watson's grandfather) were also involved in milling operations at the settlements known as Oregon and Tow Town, which would gradually coalesce into Upper Doon. This would give Doon a rather decentralized character, with a more formally organized centre around the Ferrie house, grist mill, and village (such as the surviving cottage at 39 Doon Valley Drive (https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=10685)), and a less organized chain of mills and workers' cottages stretching from Upper Doon to German Mills, of which little survives.

Homer Watson residence
Homer Watson was born in Upper Doon in 1855, the grandson of industrialist James Watson, who owned a sawmill, carding and fulling mill, and a pail factory in Oregon there. After Robert Ferrie's death in 1860, the house was eventually sold to a man named Henry Drake in 1873, and again to Henry Iles in 1883. Homer Watson initially rented from Iles in 1883 and bought the house later that year, along with 11 building lots around it. His career in ascendancy, Watson would soon depart for England in 1887, however, and would only return again in 1890. In 1893, Watson embarked on the house's first major expansion, when he added a brick extension as his purpose-built art studio, notable for its large windows which allowed a great deal of natural light into the space. The covered wooden porch was added around this time as well, giving the house its characteristic facade with features like its fish-scale shingles.