The Red House

Built circa 1845, the Red House has strong connections to several of Aurora's prominent citizens. It was constructed for Thomas Cosford, whose family owned property on all four corners of the intersection of Yonge Street and St. Johns Sideroad, at one time known as Cosford's Corners. Originally known as Oakland Cottage after the ancestral Cosford home, Thomas lived there with his daughter, Mary Ann Hartman, until his death in 1871. The property remained in the Cosford family well into the first decades of the 20th century.

In 1928, George Leacock, brother of the humorist Stephen Leacock, bought the house and re-named it Meadowlea. From 1968-1978 well-known local artist Dorothy Clark McClure lived there, naming her business after the house: Red House Studios.

In recent years, the property has been restored for use as a fine dining restaurant. Now known as the Oakland Hall Inn, extensive renovations have seen the front porch rebuilt.

The Red House is the one of the oldest surviving brick houses in Aurora, and is a modified version of a Regency cottage, now appearing more like an Ontario Gothic cottage. Modifications in the brickwork on the upper storey of the house show that within fifteen years of its construction, the roof was raised and rebuilt with a higher ridge and wider span. It has been suggested that the red wash applied to the facade (giving the house its name 'the Red House') was to camouflage the modified brickwork.