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Maitland Tower
HippoCampus
We will build on that legacy through our motto “Leading while Remembering” and show that our site’s future can be part of the healing between cultures and nations.
We are building a HippoCampus, a healing place for nature and people on the shores of the St. Lawrence River . We are rooted in the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving address. We are at the intersection of nature, science, art, history, culture, food, recreation, adventure, health and more.
We say no to bulldozing the past and yet another waterfront estate. We say YES to bringing the tower into the future.
YES to leading while remembering. YES to reconnecting with the village of Maitland. YES to a healthy future for community and nature.
To quote a dear friend of mine who passed away – Richard Dumbrille, let’s make Maitland “A Very Neat Village Indeed”, ( the title of his book) for all of us…and for Richard.
It will not happen overnight. And for it to happen at all, it will take the passion of many people and organizations to bring the Maitland Tower Hippocampus to life – Join with us.
HippoCampus
This is the site of the second largest flour mill in Upper Canada. Built by George Longley in 1828; it helped to establish the village of Maitland. The Maitland Tower is is the shell of the original windmill, and stands as a reminder of times past, including a notorious stint as the Borst and Halladay Distillery. This distillery was later forced closed for bootlegging, by Sir John A MacDonald.
Its heritage is rich and complex, from the time of Indigenous Peoples and the first French and English Colonies; it continues to be connected with entrepreneurship and community building still today.
Our Mission
We want to be a place of transformation, where nature and humanity meet, heal, thrive, and move into the future together. We feel this has to happen on the road to a brighter future, and we want to play our part. At the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Community and Nature. So…we are building a ”HippoCampus”. A campus of sorts, but so much more. A campus built on the road less travelled (in part because it is located on County Road 2 and not HWY 401).
Keep reading, our name will make a more sense soon.
We are creating a hub where people come from all walks of life to participate in creating a brighter future through a connection to nature and the St. Lawrence River .
We are located on thirteen acres on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in the Village of Maitland, in eastern Ontario, between Brockville and Prescott. Home to a landmark stone windmill tower and other stone buildings from the early 1800s, remains of a stone wharf, 4 acres of forest, a creek, fields, and almost a kilometer of shoreline. It is a unique intersection of history and nature – one which we are bringing back to life together, as a community. It’s a destination that you’ll come to when you’re ready for an immersive experience and to participate, to play your role, passionately, in creating an inspiring future for nature and humanity. It will take people from all walks of life, age, background, culture, talents, hopes and dreams, to come together with open minds, surrounded by nature, to soak in the present, to internalize that we are in the middle of incredible change, to imagine how to navigate it, and to build the future with one foot immersed in technology, and the other outside it. Exploring questions like: How can Artificial Intelligence benefit community and nature? A place to share, explore, learn, create, imagine, relax, connect, regenerate, heal, celebrate life, and health. Educators, artists and scientists, entrepreneurs, technologists, builders, designers, foodies, adventurers, musicians, culture, food, recreation, adventure, spirit, birding, surfing and yes, even to watch to boats go by and soak it all in – literally since we are on the Seaway.
The HippoCampus , from the Chart House To the Manor.
And yes, also a healing place for scars from industrial and colonial settlement. We are in the perfect place, a rural setting – the land in between as it has been called, not wilderness but definitely not a city. A place where people and nature rub shoulders, a place where we are freer to explore what is possible, here on the St. Lawrence River.
The hippocampus
Nestled deep within the brain’s temporal lobes lies a structure with a curious name and a profound purpose: the hippocampus.
Its name, derived from the Greek words hippos (horse) and kampos (sea monster), was bestowed upon it by the 16th-century anatomist Julius Caesar Aranzi, who was struck by its resemblance to the curved form of a seahorse. The hippocampus is responsible for memory consolidation, the process of converting fragile, short-term memories into stable, long-term ones that are then stored in other areas of the cerebral cortex.
Interestingly, it’s one of the few brain regions where new neurons can continue to grow throughout life, which is why activities like learning and exercise can help keep it sharp. Damage to the hippocampus can lead to memory loss, as seen in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.
learn more about the Hippocampus; click on our brain.
Philip Ling
The Property is owned by the Philip Ling Family Trust.
Philip is an entrepreneur and licensed professional engineer (electrical), LEED AP. In 1996, he co-founded Powersmiths International Corp with his business partner Cyril Eldridge. Powersmiths is a clean-tech company with a long history of market leadership designing and manufacturing ultra-high efficiency low voltage dry-type transformers and integrated power distribution systems for technology companies, data centers, green buildings, hospitals, schools and more.
Over the years they grew the company to over 130 employees. In 2018, they sold their business to a French company – Socomec Inc., who shared their passion for power quality, energy and environmental leadership, and has grown Powersmiths to over 300 employees.
The sale gave him the resources to get back to his nature roots, settle in Maitland and continue his work on the transformation of the Maitland Tower Site, bringing the original 3-pieces of the 13-acre site back together, while reviving the tower landmark and other buildings, and reimagining the future. The cycling trip legend is true, He did buy the site in 2016 after cycling past the For Sale sign on a solo trip from Toronto to New Brunswick.
Community service has always been important to him – Over his career, he volunteered on technical, environmental and green building committees and chaired several of them. Since arriving in Maitland, he has been both a donor and volunteer for causes that matter deeply to him at several local environmental and social non-profits. He is on the research advisory and River Strategy steering committees at River Institute out of Cornwall – who focus on the health of the St. Lawrence River. He co-founded and is Board Chair of DoorNumberOne.org, a local charity based in Leeds-Grenville, focused on climate action in schools across Canada. He is also on the board of United Way Leeds Grenville.
A word from Philip,
One of the reasons I bought the site was to avoid the kind of development that buys up shoreline, bulldozes our history, and carves up the property for a few more large, private waterfront homes. This special place, with its rich history and natural setting, deserves so much more than that.
My philosophy is that the best way to protect heritage buildings like the tower, the Chart House and the Stables is to give them a new life, to make them an active part of the community once again; to restore them in a way that makes them showcases for how to bridge the past into the future. Our work so far tells you what kind of people we are.
In August 2016, Philip was cycling from Markham, north of Toronto, to Acadia in New Brunswick, and passed the Maitland Tower site with a For Sale sign.
He mused that this would be the next place history would get bulldozed to make way for some new development and history would forget about this place.
Then he realized that he could be the one to buy it and do the opposite – bring it back to life, honoring the past and taking it into the future. So by the time he reached the Atlantic ocean, he had bought the Maitland Tower property.