This past week I was in beautiful Vancouver visiting family and launching my book Cleaning Up. When speaking to a Vancouver crowd about the book’s setting of Kingston, ON, I realized I have lived in Kingston for 17 years, almost as long as I ever lived in Vancouver. 

 

I spoke to the audience about living and teaching in the Kingston area and read a section about the book’s protagonist, Jess, cleaning in the Westport area. The house Jess cleans in is actually based on a real house that I stayed in many years ago, The Stepping Stone Inn, located near Westport, ON.

I loved The Stepping Stone Inn’s beautiful 1830’s limestone exterior, wide-plank floors, peaked roof and the jacuzzi tubs in the bedrooms. Since my husband and I were the only guests staying so late in the fall season, we were able to prowl around the house and gardens.

The house somehow stayed in my head and became a key setting for Cleaning Up. I kept the location and look of the house the same – that 1830’s peaked roof and wide front porch – but changed parts of the garden and interior to make the house less like an inn and more like a private residence. I kept a picture of the house on my computer desktop to remind me of the setting.

While researching the house I learned it was actually a historic home, The David Laidlaw House. The house was built between 1849-1852, by David Laidlaw, a Scottish immigrant in The Rideau Cottage style, which features one-and a-half stories, two chimneys and stone lintels over the windows.

Many readers, including myself, love reading books where they know the location and can imagine themselves in the same locations as the character in a book. So, for those of you who know the Westport area, now you can imagine Quinn Gupta’s house. And for those of you not familiar with the area, here are a few pictures to help you out.

I didn't include this pond behind the house in Cleaning Up, but it's a beautiful feature of the property and I'm sure Jess would have loved the landscape challenges it would present to a gardener. 

This barn isn't on the property of the David Laidlaw house, but it's what I envisioned as the barn where Matt lives behind the Gupta house.