Oak Hall (Niagara Falls)

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Oak Hall is a 37-room, three-story tudor-style mansion built by American mining millionaire Harry Oakes (1874-1943) located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, approximate 1/4 mile southwest of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. The building has housed the offices of the Niagara Parks Commission since 1982, while the grounds contain a 9-hole golf course established in June 1966.

[edit] Property History

The Oak Hall grounds were originally part of the Clark Hill Islands property (see Dufferin Islands). The property was sold off and split in 1898 and went through several ownership changes until Paul A. Schoellkopf bought the property in 1916. The Schoellkopf family was based across the Niagara River in Niagara Falls, New York and were pioneers of hydraulic power development in the region.

Harry Oakes and his wife, Lady Eunice Oakes, bought the property from Schoellkopf in 1924 and constructed the Oak Hall building, which was completed by 1928. The Oakes family lived there until 1935, when Oakes wound up his affairs with Canada (due to what he believed was over-taxation of his gold mines) and moved to the Bahamas.

After Oakes' violent death in the Bahamas in 1943, Lady Oakes deeded the mansion to the Canadian Government to be used as a convalescent hospital for the Royal Canadian Air Force. In the early 1950s, Harry Oakes' son, Sir Sidney Oakes, lived there with his wife before moving back to the Bahamas.

The Niagara Parks Commission purchased Oak Hall in 1959, and in 1964 opened it to the public. Furnishings included dinner chairs used during a visit to the area by Albert Edward, Prince Of Wales in 1919.

A par-3 golf course was opened on the grounds in 1966 in efforts to attract more visitors to the grounds, with the golf course offices housed in the former garage area. The Parks Commission still sought to utilize the mansion fully, and in 1982 moved their central offices from Queen Victoria Park to Oak Hall, where they remain today (the golf offices were moved to a gatehouse on the outer grounds). Though the majority of the rooms were converted to office space, three rooms remained in their historic state, with the Prince of Wales' dinner chairs still on display in the dining room.

Oak Hall is open to the public.