BROWN, George H. (c. 1843- ), was active in Barrie, Ont. in 1876-78 and was the architect of the stylish if flamboyant scheme to renovate and enlarge the Town Hall there in 1877. This design incorporated an elaborate Second Empire roof and corner towers, and with its twenty chimneys, seventeen ventilators and lavish roof cresting it was '....an object of sincere admiration to every beholder and no expense has been spared to furnish it with every modern appliance of civilization'. Brown was particularly well-versed in the fashionable Second Empire style and conceived an elaborate 'French Villa' for William Lount in Barrie in 1878. His only ecclesiastical work, commissioned by the Baptist congregation, was an inspired Gothic design which made extensive use of polychromatic brickwork on both the exterior and interior of the church. He may be the same 'G.H. Brown, Architect' later recorded in Toronto in 1881.
George H. BROWN (works in Barrie, Ont.)
DOMINION HOUSE HOTEL, Dunlop Street, for Bernard Hines, 1876 (Northern Advance [Barrie] 23 March 1876, 2, descrip.; East Georgian Bay Historical Foundation, Barrie- A Nineteenth Century County Town, 1984, 18, illus.)
TOWN HALL, Collier Street at Mulcaster Street, 1877; altered c. 1930; demol. 1988 (Northern Advance [Barrie], 29 March 1877, 3; 31 May 1877, 2; 8 Nov. 1877, 2, detailed descrip.; M. MacRae & A. Adamson, Cornerstones of Order, 1983, 227-28, illus.)
SIMCOE COUNTY COURT HOUSE, Worsley Street, tower and facade, 1877; altered 1944 (City of Barrie, Proceedings of the Municipal Court, June 1877, 28, 37)
VALLEY DRIVE, near Sunnidale Road, residence for William Lount, 1878 (Northern Advance [Barrie], 7 March 1878, 3, descrip.)
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, Clapperton Street at Worsley Street, 1878 (Globe [Toronto], 21 Jan. 1878, 3, t.c.; Northern Advance [Barrie] 12 Dec. 1878, 3, descrip.).