Cherry-picked “truths about Baybrook” are incorrect

The recent letter by a Jane Adamson (nee Stubbs) “The Truth about Baybrook,” makes extremely incorrect allegations with reference to a statement I made on behalf of MLHS in April 2013:

“Baybrook is to be restored in keeping with Mack Laing’s will..”

These allegations, together with the statement that Mr. Newhouse’s letter “is an insult to my parents, Elizabeth Stubbs…” are particularly bewildering since Mrs. Stubbs was until October 2014 a founding director of MLHS, as pictures and minutes of MLHS meetings show. These cherry-picked “truths” omit pointing out that the Adamson house overlooks Baybrook, and is concerned with noise, traffic and parking.

As the 2013 Mack Laing House Report details, Mack Laing lived in two houses. He built Baybrook in 1923 and sold it in 1949, when he built Shakesides. The Stubbs sold Baybrook in 2006 to a developer who wanted to build 20 residential units. (The sellers were then obviously not concerned with future density and occupancy.) This was then bought by the Town of Comox, for public use, thereby returning both Baybrook and Shakesides to the public. There are therefore in point of fact, two (2) Mack Laing houses in the public domain.

Of the two houses, Baybrook is the one with most heritage value, because that is where Mack Laing did his most important work and writing, and where Alice Munro stayed. Mack Laing’s final 1982 will specifically requested that his money, some $55K, be invested and his “home … used as a natural history museum”. For 33 years, Comox never made good on this part of Mack Laing’s will. After 33 years of neglect, both the architectural and engineering reports indicate that Shakesides cannot be salvaged, but that Baybrook is in good structural condition and could be restored.

That Mack Laing always thought of Baybrook as his home, is evident to anyone who reads his memoire, and of his love for Ethel and Baybrook: Baybrook: Life’s best adventure.

MLHS is a benevolent 50+ member nonprofit society created by Project Watershed and Comox Valley Nature. It is not a “commercial for profit” business intent on taking over or managing a park. The reports explicitly state that the Society’s mandate concerns only the preservation and maintenance of Mack Laing’s original house “Baybrook,”as a walk-in only interpretive centre, open to the public, as per Mack Laing’s wishes.

MLHS, PW and CVN have no direct interest in park management. We are not developing a property. We propose to rehabilitate a 1600 sq ft. cottage, following BC Heritage guidelines. MLHS activities are mainly for the educational benefit of children and young families of the Comox Valley.

This plan is in keeping with what are understood to be Mack Laing’s wishes, by someone who knew him peronsally Alice Bullen (http://macklaingsociety.ca/).

All work is to be undertaken at no cost to the taxpayer. Detailed information is in the 2013 and 2014 reports, which are freely and publicly available and for which complimentary copies were given to members of the Stubbs family.

Loys Maingon (President)
Comox Valley Nature

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