6191 Highway 201: The Garnet Banks House

Architecture Style: Log Cabin

Built: 1988

Garnet and Kay [Burke] Banks knew this land would be just the right place for a quiet country home.  Ethelwyn Gaul agreed to sell it to them, sensing they would be “good neighbours”. It was once part of a 500-acre grant given before 1800 to a planter from New England who happened to be named Moses Banks!  In the 1920s, the farm was divided between two Elliott brothers, Ritchie and Rufus. The Ritchie Elliott house, on this very site, burned in 1938. Ethelwyn [Trimper] Gaul was living there and had just come home from hospital with her new baby boy, Jim. She fled the house barefoot, in night clothes. Times were hard then: her husband Gerald had lost his job a few weeks before when the Lawrencetown evaporator, which dried apples, burned.  He was working on his brother’s farm to feed his family. The depression was a reality in Paradise.  Farmers had food, but little else. Jobs were scarce.  Family and friends helped each other as best they could;  Ethelwyn and baby Jim stayed with her mother.

Garnet and Kay chose to build from a log cabin kit; a friend in Maine had a log cabin, and they were impressed. Practically, a log cabin has many advantages. The shell was erected in one weekend with the help of friends and neighbours. The walls are 8 inches thick, and the windproof metal roof is 6 inches thick; the home is warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  Aesthetically, it is charming. The red roof is so friendly!  The wooden interior is warm and cosy, and the large rear windows show a  pastoral vista of mountain and valley.

Kay’s family shows the longstanding ties between Nova Scotia and New England. Her mother outmigrated, but Kay knew Nova Scotia from summer visits. Her grandmother, Lilla Burke, was Dr. Rupert Morse’s “office girl”; his connections in the U.S. helped her find a job and realize her dream of being a nurse. When World War I broke out, Lilla drove an ambulance for the U.S. Army, earning her WWI medals of service as nurses did, with selfless courage in the midst of great danger.  Garnet was the son and grandson of carpenters, and a builder and woodcarver himself. His grandfather, Percy Banks, was a well-known photographer.  A telephone worker and farmer, Garnet called for square dances for 30 years. In retirement, he played with four different groups of musicians for our nursing homes.  He and Kay delivered Meals on Wheels, were active in the outreach ministries of Emmanuel Congregational Church, and were good neighbours indeed.