Harrington Lake the lake, expanding his total holdings to some 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres). He also ordered the demolition of the mill buildings at Harrington Lake, and replaced them with a 16-room cottage that was designed in the Colonial Revival style, very common in the 1920s according to the NCC, but with the addition of large fieldstone chimneys. In 1951, the lake and the property (including neighbouring land belonging to William Duncan Herridge and Stanley Healey) were acquired by the King in Right of Canada to build up preserves of natural areas around the capital. In 1959, supporters of Prime Minister John
Gatineau Park was to be the first national park created by the first parks service in the world, the Dominion Parks Branch. On December 3, 1913, Dominion Parks Commissioner James B. Harkin wrote to Deputy Minister of the Interior William Cory, arguing for the creation of a nationwide system of parks, the first of which was to be Gatineau Park. In his memo, Harkin said: A few months later, on Cory's suggestion, Harkin wrote Quebec Minister of Mines and Forests Charles Devlin inquiring whether he would help establish a national park in the Gatineau district. Although provincial officials wrote back that the