Whitehern is a Georgian-style stone house in the centre of downtown Hamilton, built in 1848 and continuously occupied by the McQuesten family until 1968. The last family members left the house and gardens to the city on the condition that nothing be changed — so the rooms, furniture, books, paintings, and personal possessions remain almost exactly as they were when the family lived there.
The result is one of the most authentic family-home museums in Canada. Thomas Baker McQuesten, the most prominent of the family, was a Hamilton MP and minister in the Ontario government who drove the construction of the Queen Elizabeth Way and the development of the Niagara Parks system. The walled garden behind the house is a quiet pocket of green in the downtown core. Closed Mondays.