[PHOTO] Fourteen photos of the interior of Beaconsfield Historic House, Charlottetown

[rfmcdonald]

One important thing to remember about Beaconsfield Historic House, since 1979 on the official register of Canada's Historic Places, is that when it was built in the 1870s it was a stellar achievement. The Peakes, a dynasty of shipuilders, had grown wealthy on a Prince Edward Island that had reached the apex of its 19th century prosperity. When the Island came to share in the post-Confederation slump of young Canada, part of the long depression, the Peakes lost everything. In a real sense, the expensively fitted-out Beaconsfield can be compared to the expensive mansions of those pre-Crash businesspeople who lost everything after 2008.