Condos
July 26, 2022
This Food Entrepreneur Turned A Crumbling Heritage Building Into A Bakery & Pied-À-Terre
When the kids finally move out, some people take the opportunity to downsize. Others, like Tracey Pritchard — a food entrepreneur and the creator of a frozen pastry business — find themselves doing quite the opposite. After her last child moved out in 2016, Tracey decamped from her Victorian house in Toronto’s west end to a 3,000-square-foot, early Dutch American– style house in Stratford, Ont., all the while casting about for a small space to run her business, Perfect Pastry. But when Tracey’s son, Nick, a commercial real-estate agent, found a 150-year-old heritage building in neighbouring St. Marys, Ont., small became big — almost 13,000-square-feet big. Tracey knew 6 Water Street well: it was a stone’s throw from her parents’ old 40-hectare farm where her kids had spent their summers; daughter Alex had not only gotten married there, but had stuck around in Stratford. “The building was in rough shape,” says Tracey. “And when I found out it was part of an old flour mill, I just had to have it.” Her friends thought she’d gone mad, but Tracey and Alex hatched a plan: they would open an épicerie and bakery together and call it The Flour Mill Food Shop.
Despite its dilapidated state, “the building had an energy and I immediately felt drawn to it,” says Tracey. She enlisted the help of designer Valerie Farrell, whom she’d met 30 years prior when the pair worked in the restaurant industry together (while Valerie studied architecture). The designer set about carving up the building’s cavernous space into a seamless layout that could house retail and residential, and even host events.
Scroll down for a look inside the revitalized space!
First up, temporary quarters were constructed so Tracey would have a place to live while overseeing the massive project. A tiny but sophisticated pied-à-terre on the mezzanine floor of the building was created with simple white walls and painted floors. Tracey’s mix of antique furniture and eclectic textiles brought old world charm to the circa-1863 space, which overlooks the Thames River. The sink in the tiny kitchen is a pint-size bathtub she bought at a secondhand store across the street.
Framed posters pay homage to Tracey’s Toronto roots; the antique painted table came from her Ukrainian grandparents’ farmhouse.
When the pandemic hit, everything slowed to a glacial pace, compounded by the fact that two entire storeys hadn’t been occupied in more than 100 years. “Save for my two big dogs, Bear and Beau, I was rattling around in this giant building all by myself for almost two years — yet it always had a really great vibe,” says Tracey.
Her patience was rewarded when gems literally started to come out of the woodwork. “St. Marys is a quarry town, so most buildings are made of stone,” she says of the stone walls, which had been lying dormant behind layers of dust and drywall. “The building kept on giving.” Magnificent stone arch windows and even the building’s original antique doors were all uncovered with further excavation.
Baskets hold hundreds of Tracey’s cooking magazines.
The dining table — custom made from old barnboards — is from the family farm. “It was the scene of so many wonderful meals, laughs and fond memories,” says Tracey.
A window casts light on a primitive table, butter bowl and rug — all from antique shops in the area.
In the lounge, Tracey built a sideboard to hide old ductwork, as well as to display art and pottery.
The shop’s pretty exterior is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy.
The Flour Mill Food Shop now showcases cabinets and counters crafted from original baseboards and doorjambs. “We repurposed and reused everything, ” she says.
The Flour Mill Food Shop sells farm-fresh, local free-run eggs; they’re the only eggs Tracey will use in her baking.
Like one of her signature recipes, all the ingredients worked their magic under Tracey’s deft hands. Soon, the former pied-à-terre will become terrace space for Tracey’s two-storey owner’s suite and an adjacent Airbnb apartment. A yoga studio sits on the second floor and, on the ground level, The Flour Mill Food Shop is one of four retail spaces, and sells everything from homemade chia pots to potpies. “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” says Tracey. Adds her daughter Alex (right): “When we lock up the shop at the end of the night, there’s nowhere else we can imagine ourselves being.”
Robin Stubbert
House & Home June 2022