A scenic town on Nova Scotia’s South Shore is looking to sell a prominent schoolhouse because the community can’t afford the costs of maintaining the national historic site.
Lunenburg Academy dates back to 1895 and is a three-storey Victorian-style building often referred to as the castle on the hill.The town has paid nearly $2 million in capital and operating costs since 2012 and last year asked the Lunenburg Academy Foundation whether it wanted to buy the building. Foundation president Rachel Bailey says her organization was caught off guard at the time but has since hired a consultant to do a feasibility study on a potential purchase.
Lunenburg Mayor Matt Risser says it’s still possible the town could retain the building if there’s no sale, but he adds that a plebiscite would have to be held on raising taxes in order to pay for it. Parks Canada says Lunenburg Academy was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1983 because “it is a rare survivor from Nova Scotia’s 19th century academy system of education.”