Stafford Place (William R. and Mary Leuty Stafford House)

From its elevated site, Port Hope's finest house overlooks the remains of its owner's sawmill, planing mill, salt works, and docks and commands “an extended and magnificent view of Lake Huron.” William R. Stafford (1828–1916), an enterprising man who exploited the resources of Huron County and built up the town of Port Hope, in the 1850s secured needed capital from friends back east in New Hampshire for investments in the pine lands of Huron County. The lumber was hauled to Port Hope. Here it was sawed and planed, and loaded onto ships bound for lumberyards owned by Stafford and his partners at Cleveland. When the forests were depleted, Stafford sold or farmed the cutover lands and milled flour. In 1866 he and his wife, Mary Leuty (1841–1926), erected this wooden Italian villa. A tower with a flared and pinnacled roof rises from the embrace of the wings of the house with a front gable and wing plan. Adjacent to the Stafford house is the Isaac Leuty House, a Gothic Revival building erected in the 1870s at 7955 School Street for Stafford's father-in-law; and the Frederick and Elizabeth Stafford House, a Queen Anne house built in the late 1880s for their daughter, is at 4489 Main Street and functions as Stafford House Bed-and-Breakfast.