Bellevue House

Photo Credit: Ben Carter

Bellevue House was built in the early 1840s for Charles Hales, a successful Kingston grocer.  Bellevue House was the home to Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John Alexander Macdonald.  Visit the house and experience innovative interpretation techniques meant to bring alive what life was like for the Macdonalds as a middle-class family living in Kingston in the 1840’s.

Bellevue House is one of the first and finest examples of Italianate villa architecture in Canada.  The house has three main floors, but is divided by seven separate levels.  The first floor is a very large drawing room, containing a parlour piano manufactured in London, England in about 1820.  The first floor also contains the formal dining room.  The large kitchen is located down toward the cellar.  The basement contains both a storage area used for storing fruits, vegetable, and preserves, and a laundry room.  The top floor of the house includes a guest room, maid’s bedroom, nursery, study, dressing room, and master bedroom.

While visiting the Bellevue House, visitors can either do the guided or self-guided tour with interpreters dressed accurately as gentlemen and maids from the 1840’s time period.