Journeyman Stone Cutter, Building Restoration Consultant,
President of Summit Restoration Ltd. and Managing
Director of Old World Stone Ltd.
John Bridges began his apprenticeship as a stone
mason in 1958 in Oxford, England, where he worked
on restoration projects at Christchurch and University
Colleges and at nearby Blenheim Palace, the home of
Winston Churchill.
He came to Canada in 1966 to work on the St. Lawrence
Hall restoration, one of Toronto's Centennial Projects.
He also worked on the restoration of Osgoode Hall
Law School and the University of Toronto.
He formed Summit Restoration Ltd. in 1974 to specialize
in exterior building restoration - with the clear
objective of gaining recognition as an authority in
the field, and developing the best company in the
business in Canada.
Under John Bridges' leadership, Summit has gained
an enviable reputation through its work on over 2,500
building restoration projects, including the Toronto
Union Station and Old City Hall, Collingwood Post
Office, the CHUM/City TV Building in Toronto, Hiram
Walker/Allied Vintners Head Office Building in Windsor,
the CN Tower, and the Bank of Nova Scotia Head Office
in Halifax.
John Bridges formed Old World Stone in 1990, partly
to provide a source of original stone artifacts to
match replacement requirements in deteriorating buildings,
but also to answer requirements for original designs
in stone. Some recent projects completed by Old World
Stone include Cleveland Tower at Princeton University,
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado,
and St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
Filling a serious gap in the industry, Old World
Stone now employs a team of Old World craftspeople;
stone masons, stone cutters and stone carvers - all
of whom perform at the highest level of the craft
to create quality work that will last.
Mr. Bridges was one of those instrumental in founding
the provincial government initiative to form training
programs for apprentice Stone Masons and Restoration
Masons and is a member of the Ontario Ministry of
Development and Skills Steering Committee. He is an
annual guest lecturer on the restoration of historical
buildings at the University of Wisconsin Faculty of
Architecture and Building Sciences.
He is a founding director of the International Association
of Stone Restoration and Conservation, and has been
a director and member of the Sealant, Waterproofing
and Restoration Institute for a number of years.
