‘Ready for its next chapter’
Cape Breton historian, treasure hunter’s house up for sale.
LOUISBOURG — The house Cape Breton treasure hunter Alex Storm made his home, his workshop and his marine museum is up for sale and his children hope the new owners will take advantage of the potential.
Built in 1895, Alex purchased the home in the early 1960s after emigrating to Canada. Originally a hotel, with parking in the back for horses, Alex used the building for many business ventures.
He rented the rooms out as apartments until he married the love of his life, Emily (Lawrence) Storm, and they started their family. At one point, there was a restaurant on the lower level which Alex, who was also a historian, turned into a marine museum.
“It was an amazing childhood,” said Jason Storm, one of Alex’s five children. “Me and my brothers would go on these incredible adventures with dad.”
“We grew up with all of that and we thought it was normal until we got older and started going to friends’ houses. Then we realized maybe it wasn’t.”
Alex, a longtime employee of the Fortress of Louisbourg, has a vast collection of items from his treasure hunting while scuba diving the ocean floors and beachcombing various shores in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. There are coins from shipwrecks dating back to the 1600s. Spoons, pottery and nautical compasses are on display as well as large aquariums with marine life from the area.
“When we were cleaning the house out for heavy garbage, Jason asked me to get rid of these big buckets,” said Cathy Lawrence, who is married to Alex’s wife’s brother.
“I asked him what they were for and Jason told me they used to go down to the harbour to get water for the tanks.”
Alex asked Sydney-based artist, Charlie Dawe, to paint the walls of the museum depicting the ocean. In one room, Alex has a fishing dory he cut in half attached to a wall Dawe painted to look like the ocean filled with fish and other boats casting lines.
In another, Dawe painted the Fortress as if looking at it from the ocean, rolling waves in front. Alex made a model ship and it is attached to the wall, coming out of a wave sculpted from plaster, as if the boat is trying to survive the rocky water.
“He was a very innovative, creative person,” said Jason. “I remember as a kid, I was probably six or seven, seeing this big flatbed truck with that massive anchor (that is still out front) driving up to our house.”
The anchor came from the Astrea, a ship carrying 251 immigrants from Ireland that crashed into drift ice off the shore of Little Lorraine. Those anchors have become a part of Louisbourg, used as a landmark when giving directions, just like the house is a part of the community’s history.
Jason remembers bonfires in the backyard where it felt like the whole community came out and remembers his father coming home after finding the bottom jaw bones of a whale.
After his father’s death in August, Jason said a lot of people have been sharing their stories about Alex and their family home.
“One guy came by and told me about melting lead in the bonfire to make muskets,” he said during a phone interview from his home in Ottawa.
“The kind of house it was, it’s tied to the history of Louisbourg.”
The home on Main Street went up for sale in the fall and Jason said they have a buyer from Ontario and closing is expected this week. Although he isn’t sure of the new buyer’s plans, Jason said he heard he maybe renovating the building and turning it into an Airbnb. Jason believes this would make his father, as well as him and his siblings, very happy.
“If that’s the case, it would be the best possible outcome,” he said. “We just want somebody to make something more of it.”
Once the sale if finalized, the buyer gets the dory in the wall, the antique fixtures (including glass orb fire extinguishers) and some vintage furniture.
They won’t get Alex’s treasures, preserved marine life or paintings. Those have already been donated to the O2 Oceans of Opportunity Marine Science and Heritage Centre on Harbourfront Crescent, where they will be on display for everyone to enjoy.
Just like Alex would have wanted.