Ruggles-Munro House › Now, a little history

Today, the Ruggles-Munro house is a sophisticated early 19th century three-storey Georgian residence situated on almost an acre of property on St. George Street in the town of Annapolis Royal. But we know now from dendrochronology testing that it started out life around 1818 as a one-and-a-half storey house on eight acres, land formerly part of the old Davoue farm.

By 1829 it had gained a second storey, complete with a ballroom, and by 1834, the attic had been added. The original house underwent a Victorian renovation in 1873, resulting in the bay windows and corbelled door of the front façade. The property, which has had 27 owners in the last 199 years, is named after the two families who lived on it for the longest periods of time — the Ruggles and the Munros.

Mr. Israel William Ruggles, a merchant in Annapolis Royal, bought the property in May of 1829 and lived in it for 37 years before he sold it in 1866 to James Whitney, another merchant. Whitney kept the house for only twelve months before he sold it to Walter Scott Gray and his wife Isabella Augusta, who transformed the Georgian façade by putting in the bay windows. Many years later, in 1948, Mr. Laurence Munro, a farmer from Lake Munro, bought the old place so his children could go to school in Annapolis Royal. The property remained in the Munro family until I bought it in August of 2006.

I completed its historical rehabilitation in late 2007 and put it on the market. The Munro house has had two owners in the last 10 years and undergone some changes, proving that old houses have to be adaptable in order to survive!