Update: 2026: Farmhouse abandoned. Waterloo Region's toilets ran the dug well dry
Huber Cider Mill Historic Display using the last Braendle cider boiler.
www.embracingchange.ca vol 4. Issue 1, September 2021, Page 4
Braendle Farmhouse 1885: balloon view.
Farmhouse. 11 foot cielings main floor. Hewn beams support kitchen floor and ceiling.
Cookhouse. Likely the first structure built on the land.
Cookhouse Build Date
With enthusiastic permission from Preston Sand & Gravel, the old cider press boiler is rescued in 2016 for Huber historic display
Painting from 1980 of the cider press that collapsed in a 2011 ice storm. Longtime landmark at Boomer & Kressler
2026 Update
The Region of Waterloo's flush toilet runs the dug well dry, dooming the farmhouse to demolition: It sits abandoned. The house was so well designed and built by German immigrants that it far outlasted them. Unlike a modern sterile house made of particles & plastic, every aspect of the house had hand crafted uniqueness which time mellowed to a work of art.
Workers who demolish will be unaware of the lives lived, friendships and marriages, hardships, and triumphs. Wood, stone, and concrete is all they will see.
Waterloo's 700,000+ residents consume between 25-30% of the Waterloo Moraine aquifer (shallow gravel) when they flush. Across 2005 to 2025 the water table dropped 1M as far as Linwood to the North, or St Jacobs to the East. Now there is a development moratorium, posturing politicians, embarrassed bureaucrats, and entertainment: what will they do?
Provincial Wells From this are screen shots of the Linwood and St Jacobs wells. The trend is and was clear.
The irony is the farmhouse relied on an outhouse and a composting toilet that both worked well. The outhouse, once a sauna, was huge with 3km country view, and full of curios & humourous clippings.
Our dug well was 47' deep with water at 44', last I checked. 6 feet wide at the mouth and tapering its brick lined way to maybe 3 feet wide at the bottom. Imagine the skill, risk and effort involved to burrow down through extremely hard packed soil. I needed a pick axe when I added backup submersible system. In 2024 the well ran dry.
I had thought the massive and ever expanding lake in the Steed & Evans pit, 1km away, was the culprit. They exhausted their pit and opted to dredge to monetize to the max. Each car sized scoop of gravel would naturally drop the water table temporarily. The Contestogo river was also 1km further north and roughly the same level but whether 1M above or below I don't know.
Preston Sand and Gravel (Seegmiller), owner of the property, will dredge eventually too. The patriarch had always wanted to demolish but offspring reminded him people live there. I'd say over 30 years I paid $270K (present value 2023, when I left) in communal rent and I did get $400 for a new jet pump system, which I installed. It was a fantastic deal to have low rent, an absentee landlord, and the privacy and space only the wealthiest can afford.