Rosedale Manor B&B

05/22/2026

WAR BRINGS DÉCOR

Glass and crystal door k***s are a common sight in many of the older homes like Rosedale Manor. They add a touch of elegance and charm to the B&B's overall décor. But how did this design come to be so popular? Some of the earliest examples came out of Boston in the 1820s. However they only began to spike in popularity, and later became a luxury architectural accent, during the 1920s through to the 1950s.

Why the delay? Why glass? Short answer - metal shortages. During WWI, brass, bronze, and iron were heavily rationed and diverted to manufacture weapons and ammunition. Prior to WWI, cast bronze and iron were the standard for home hardware. When metals became scarce, sand was used to create pressed glass k***s, resulting in the iconic 6-, 8- and 12-facet diamond-cut k***s.

Ironically Lori and I had been collecting these crystal gems for decades. And when we bought Rosedale we realized they finally had a permanent home.

05/06/2026

BEAUTY BY DESIGN

Are ornamental decorations in your life unnecessary? Maybe. In today’s world we look at things like these and think how quaint. We say it’s trivial. Why? Because we don’t associate high end decoration with modernization anymore. We say it’s old fashioned.

That’s the fundamental difference between then and now. The Gilded Age saw no contradiction between 19th century modernity and their startling use of ornamentation. And yet for decades now we’ve been told that we can no longer afford beauty in design. In things like the 1890 Art Nouveau bas-relief on internal structural beams, the 1905 glass handle on a coloured stained glass door, a relief carving on an 1925 armoire and even a gilded Rococo design on a 1930s oil lamp.

Even cursive handwriting has disappeared!

Luxury is a thing of the past. But that’s a lie. They had a secret. We forget that their ornamentation was not always handmade. It too was often industrial, molded and repetitive on objects made in factories like ours, sold through big mail out catalogues instead of online. It too was mass produced.

Let’s take Rosedale Manor as an example. It has been standing for over 130 years. Will the average 21 century home last this long? Will it showcase as well? Probably not.

The real shift here is not economics. We stopped measuring beauty’s value and started prioritizing convenience, speed, cost-cutting and simple function ahead of aesthetics, with less options out there from which to choose. This is the new pattern. Efficiency becomes the main measure in design. And when you measure the bottom line only, everything else disappears.

Here’s what we don’t talk about enough - visual quality signals and social investment. When a home looks beautiful with a groomed garden to showcase it, we feel welcomed. When it has detail, texture and visual interest, it radiates “someone cares about this place”. That perception changes behaviour. It’s measurable civic quality. We don’t just lose beauty when we choose convenience, we also lose the belief that we deserve that beauty. We didn’t eliminate care to save money, we eliminated it because our society stopped measuring its value, because we chose cost-savings over love.

The one big difference from their work is that our modern designs are often disposable. Yet all that pride of design and ornamental production is surprisingly cheaper in the long run as we have less of a will to dispose of things that please the eye.

Beauty is everywhere inside Rosedale Manor and throughout our English sitting garden. And in the next few entries we’re going to show you some simple examples, from the swinging gate inwards. Stay tuned!

When I'm working on a problem,
I never think about beauty.
But when I've finished,
if the solution is not beautiful...
I know it's wrong.
— Buckminster Fuller

https://www.rosedalemanor.ca

02/02/2026

February 2 - Today is the 40th day after Christmas. Happy Candlemas Day to all you catholics. Other regions, especially in France and Belgium, know it historically as the “day of crêpes”. The Celts called it Imbolc and it was a pagan holiday that signalled the halfway point between the winter solstice (Yule) and the spring equinox (Ostara).

One of the central traditions of Candlemas is the ritual of digging a hole in the ground and lighting and blessing a candle. The day is a moment for reflection on the “light” of faith and is a bridge between the Christmas season and the anticipation of Lent. In many Eastern European countries, the feast of the Presentation officially closes the celebration of Christmas and serves as a final marker to take down Christmas decorations.

In Scotland, folklore suggests that the weather on Candlemas Day predicts the length of winter. A bright and sunny day means winter will linger, while a stormy and cloudy day signals its end. So if the bright sun “overshadows” the brightness of Candlemas Day, there will be more winter. However, if the light of the day radiates through the gloom and darkness, the end of winter is near.

Candlemas Day also was important in the lives of farmers. An old English song went as follows: “If Candlemas be fair and bright, / Come, Winter, have another flight. / If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, / Go, Winter, and come not again.”

A final point, the 18th century Protestants Dutch in Pennsylvania originated a folk belief that the powers of the late-winter emergence of hibernating creatures would predict the upcoming next six weeks of weather leading into spring. They in turn replaced Candlemas Day with Groundhog Day.

12/22/2025

12/16/2025

Thank you to the Placentia Chamber of Commerce for bestowing Rosedale Manor B&B with the 2025 Business Excellence Customer Appreciation Award. Presenting the award is Placentia Mayor Jamie Neville.

12/07/2025

STAINED GLASS

The earliest forms of coloured glass date back to ancient Egyptians who made simple beads and jewelry. The techniques for glazing windows and creating more complex items didn’t appear until the Romans and never really gained widespread prominence until the Middle Ages. With the Crusades it started to pop up in church and cathedral architecture throughout Europe as a visual tool to tell biblical stories for a largely illiterate population (a magnificent example is Chartres Cathedral in France).

Later, the Renaissance and the Reformation led to a period of growth, decline and destruction of stained glass, which were often replaced with plain glass. Then the Gothic Revival movement in the 19th century sparked a major resurgence in stained glass, especially in public buildings and homes like Rosedale.

Today, stained glass continues to be a popular art form. The craft is practiced by professionals and hobbyists, creating everything from large architectural installations to smaller decorative items like lamps and home accents.
We at Rosedale value the intrinsic and decorative aspect of coloured glass and have adapted its use throughout our Bed and Breakfast where possible. To date we have added two coloured windows and, since this fall, a fourth stained glass door to the building.

Hats off to friends Finton and Bernard with special thanks my two brothers Ron and Calvin for their help with this delicate and beautiful installation.

11/24/2025

11/15/2025

We're trying something new at Rosedale for next summer. The inspiration is from the garden at Rosedale Manor itself. Rosa Rugosa grows in abundance in Placentia, and our property is no exception. It is also home to two large crab apple trees which provide shelter for a family of nesting robins, as well as a summer attraction to cedar waxwings who consume the flower petals to supplement their diet. Our trees also produce a bounty of apples in the fall. Therefore, we were thrilled to discover a recipe that combines both apples and rose hips…and awards us the joy of foraging simply within the gates of 40 Orcan Drive. We are excited to share this culinary delight with our guests next season!

07/18/2025

A Smack of Jellyfish

Over the past week, some unexpected life forms have migrated under our lift bridge and made their way up Placentia’s Southeast Arm. Moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) drift, late evening, along the outer side of the wave wall. I rush home and launch my kayak so I can float with the group. The current swings us to and fro as we move up the arm, with the sun going down in the distant town.

These aliens pulse slowly on incoming tides, migrating to shallow waters. And yet, driven by invisible currents, they seem to still have some sort of purpose. I focus on one in particular. It breaks the surface like a whale’s back and then without reason, just stops, spreads out its parachute, and slowly sinks—a beating heart that has simply given up.

It’s hard not to think of them as individuals as they do their slow ballet moves. But the word is still out; sometimes scientists discuss them as creatures and other times as simply a colony of thousands of tiny microorganisms with no central nervous system or brain.

Biologists see jellyfish as living remnants of early stages in our own evolution, from a time when millions of microorganisms joined together to form single, specialized cells, creating a more complex system. But if they have no brain or nervous system, what drives these aquatic gestures? What pushes them up this arm, across these dark, quilted waters? How does such exposed frailty, a pulsating galaxy of bruised purple, remain intact in such a rough ocean if I can sever one simply by lowering the blade of my paddle?

I find myself surprisingly touched by these silent beings drifting in the night like graceful ghosts through cold brackish water. Are they bodies that have left their souls behind?

We need silence
to be able to touch souls.
~ Mother Teresa

02/20/2025

How does spending a day, a week, or a month in a beautiful heritage waterfront property by yourself sound? Rosedale Manor is offering you just that!

Our 1893 home is situated on the Orcan River in historic Placentia, NL. Choose one (or all) of our four comfortable rooms and let your creativity flow. Enjoy the quiet, luxury and privacy of a rural setting, only one hour drive from the capital city. The owners live off site, but can be at your beck and call if there’s anything you should need.

Come to Rosedale and disappear…imagine where your pen may take you!