Old School | Doors Open Hamilton

One of my long time favourite events to attend is Doors Open Hamilton. If you’ve been following my writing for a while you’ll know that the Hamilton Doors Open event was my first taste of these architectural tours. Where buildings open their doors to the public, even those places that are often closed off. Of course, the group that introduced me to the event was the Urban Exploration community. Which shouldn’t surprise you, a group dedicated to taking a look behind closed doors, suddenly had open access without too much chance of getting in trouble. That being said, there were several events where explorers took things a little too far and were asked to leave. This year I had the chance to do an old school tour, one where I parked my car and headed out on food through downtown Hamilton and checked out six locations. Most of these are ones that I’ve been to before but haven’t for a few years plus one new location. For this trip I decided to go fairly light weight, taking only my D750 with three lenses, the 14mm f/2.8D, the 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, and the 105mm f/2D portrait lens if I needed to get a little closer to some details. I also had along my Demi EE17 for shooting along the way for the walk. But those photos are for the camera’s official review later this year, so they won’t be appearing in this entry.

Lister Block
It wouldn’t be doors open without Lister Block. Lister is a location that has been a long-time favourite of mine. Having seen the place in its last days (probably) through being abandoned and then fully restored. The Block has been a mainstay and iconic building in downtown Hamilton. Having grown out of the ashes of Lister Chambers, the location was an ambitious gamble by Joseph Lister, who saw the arrival of the railroad north as an opportunity. The Block, constructed of brown brick and terracotta accents, has a fireproof concrete structure. This fact is what saved the block from being lost while its doors were closed to the general population and home to the unhoused of Hamilton through the late 1990s and into the early 2000s. I still maintain that the restoration did the building proud, restored it to its former glory, and breathed new life into the intersection.

New Vision United
New Vision is a church I have only visited once before, at Doors Open. It’s a new congregation formed from two older congregations, St. Giles & Centenary, and it worships in the space that once housed Centenary United Church, which opened in 1868 and was named to celebrate 100 years of Methodism in Canada (it was originally home to a Methodist congregation). Today, the congregation worships in the lower hall while the original sanctuary is used as a rentable music venue. But it has still retained and restored many of the historical elements. What was amazing was chatting with the church administrator, not just about the building, but also about the mission work the church is doing in the wider community.

Whitehern
Whitehern ended up being a bonus spot for me, not on my original list. But I was running ahead of the game, and there was no line up to get in. Probably the reason is that Whitehern is a bit of a hidden gem in downtown Hamilton, and there is a large population of the unhoused and those in need of community support in that area. Now I’ve visited Whitern many times, but there have always been lots of people, and it’s not a large location, so having it almost empty was a great bonus. Plus, I learned a few more things about the house and some of the furniture inside. All of the furniture is original to the home, and was turned over to the city when it became a museum. Including a pair of chairs that were used during the Royal Tour in 1939, and sat on by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother).

Magnolia Hall
Magnolia Hall is housed in the former St. Mark’s Anglican Church, which had been closed since 1989. I went here for the first time last year at Doors Open and was drawn in by how they reused the original space, modernising it while retaining the historic elements. Now, as a location, it’s pretty empty, but I wanted to get better shots of the stained glass this time around. What’s interesting is that this place is one I’ve probably seen many times before, as it is next to the apartment building where my Oma lived until she moved into an assisted living facility. So I also took some time to walk past the building.

Central Presbyterian
Another favourite of mine from Doors Open is Central Presbyterian. This is a beautiful 1908 church and the only one designed by noted architect John Lyle (his dad was minister at the time). It’s also interesting because around the city, most churches are in the Gothic Revival style, while Central is in the Beaux-Arts style. Again, there weren’t many people around, so I got to ask about the various regimental colours in the sanctuary, and they had a few more doors unlocked, allowing me to get a closer look at the stained glass in the transom balconies.

Halo Studios
Halo is the one new location on the list. The theme for this year’s Doors Open surrounds Hamilton’s music scene. And of late, I’ve been getting a little bit into sound engineering, working on improving my live mixing skills as well as my own work with the CCR podcast and my YouTube channel. Better mics, better editing and some additional plugins to make things sound far more polished and consistent. So it was great to go in, see a real studio, and look at all the gear and spaces. What was really cool was that the studio had digitised the master tapes from some of Michael Jackson’s recordings, had a bunch preloaded, and let folks play around with their massive SSL4048, as you could manipulate the individual tracks. The folks even showed me how to patch in outboard gear to see how different pre-amps and compressors worked on the tracks. And while I’ll never have room to build such a setup with real boards, outboard gear, and super expensive microphones, it was still fun to get in here, check it out, take some photos, and chat with the folks.

And that covers it for this entry, it was actually a really nice day to be out and photographing and being a little more free by travelling with such a limited setup, a single camera which I used completely handheld and when needed cranked up the ISO. The one location that sadly I missed out on was Century Manor up on the mountain, the only remaining building of the once massive mental hospital. But it was by registration only and had limited spots, but you never know it might be open again next year! And I am happy with the results from my Demi EE17 also. You can find all my photos from the locations over on my Flickr in the Doors Open Hamilton 2026 collection.