CBC Interview with Vincent Prager (Click Image To View Video)

St. Andrews is getting a brand new art gallery, in an historic location most New Brunswickers have probably never seen. Tucked into a secluded estate behind the Algonquin Hotel is Dayspring, onetime summer home of Sir James Dunn and, later, his wife Lady Beaverbrook. Now a new owner is using it as the setting for a remarkable collection of family art.

St Stephen New Brunswick Courier, September 20th, 2013

- Barb Rayner

Museum will offer unique collections and a look at Dayspring

The former home of Lady Beaverbrook is being transformed into a museum/gallery by owner Vincent Prager and is sure to become another tourist attraction in the town when it opens to the public next year.

Visitors will no only have a chance to see the paintings of the late Joseph Oppenheimer (1876-1961), who started the German school of impressionism, and his daughter Eva Prager (1913-2000), which are displayed throughout the ground floor, but also to look around Dayspring.

Prager, who is partner in the Montreal office of Denton’s in the commercial litigation section focusing primarily on maritime law, is the oldest grandson of Oppenheimer and the son of Eva Prager.

Dayspring, which is hidden behind a tall wooden fence at 44 Acadia Dr., was rezoned by town council last year from serviced residential to institutional use and Prager has donated the property to the Joseph and Fanny Oppenheimer Foundation of Montreal for use as a museum.

Dayspring was built in 1928 for Senator Lewis Egerton Smoot - Prager has the building’s original plans – then in 1947 Algoma Steel purchased the property for Sir James and Lady Dunn (later Lady Beaverbrook).

“It was their principle residence and they spent a fortune on it”, said Prager, noting the couple spent $250,000 at the time to renovate the entire house, complete the upstairs, and install a ballroom and a library.

“I’m planning to include a little section about the house and about them”, said Prager, noting Dunn owned a private plane, and would dispatch his pilot to obtain first-run movies from New York.

After Dunn died in 1960, his widow inherited the house.  She later married Lord Beaverbrook and when he died she inherited his house in England.

“She spent winters in Canada and summers in England.  She stayed here as a recluse after Beaverbrook died then in 1965 she completely redid the place again.

“All the plumbing and fixtures are top of the line.  She spent another quarter of a million on that and most of the bathrooms were never used.”

Then in 1990, Lady Beaverbrook got into a well-publicized dispute with the town over the expansion of the Algonquin – the Prince of Wales wing – because she was afraid people would be able to see over the fence into her property.

“She packed up and left and died in 1994.  I bought it in 1995”.

She also owned the property next door, Daytime, where her veterinarian lived.  Prager has also purchased that property, where he resides when in town – he can no longer occupy Dayspring since it has been rezoned.

“This (Dayspring) is a fabulous house but it is extremely impractical.  It is 144 feet from one end to the other and the kitchen is at one end so, if you want to eat on the terrace, it’s a long haul.  I ended up deciding I would move next door.”

Prager established the Joseph and Fanny Oppenheimer Foundation in memory of his grandfather with the aim of securing a representative core of Oppenheimer’s work and preserving it for posterity, exhibiting it and making it accessible to the public.

“I had not actually thought of doing it here in Saint Andrews but my mother loved it here.  The house is an ideal site.  I was going to call it a museum but have settled on the Oppenheimer/Prager Museum at Dayspring.

“I want to make it like some of the homes you visit in Europe.  It is still partly furnished although no one can live here anymore.  I want it to look vaguely like a house with my mother’s and grandfather’s pictures on the walls and all sorts of other memorabilia.”

Eva Prager, who studied at the Academe dex Beaux Arts in Berlin and the Royal College of Art in London, was also an avid collector of toys and her son has been sorting these into different displays.  There is also memorabilia in the house from the former occupants which will be on display.

“It will be an eclectic mish-mash and there will be something that everybody will like.  Now I have to write something about all the things which will be on show.

“Just putting it all together has been a huge amount of work.  There are over 200 paintings and we have put in 300 feet of track lighting.  It has been exhausting – and I have a full-time job as well.”

Prager said he not only has all these paintings but about 2,500 letters, post cards, diaries and bills since his mother was a great hoarder.

“My mother kept everything but nothing was in any kind of order.”

While sorting through things recently Prager came across a diary of his own, written when he was 16, which recounts a trip to New Brunswick in 1960.

The family visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery where he recounts meeting Lord Beaverbrook and his secretary.  On the page is a sketch by his mother of Beaverbrook sitting in the gallery.

“My mother died three years ago and that was the impetus for doing this.  I have never seen anybody hoard more things and I thought what are we going to do with all of this?  This is only a fraction of their work.  They were both incredibly prolific.

“It’s an incredible archive of the era and the people they knew.  It will be a source of research and maybe we can turn the garden house into a residence and maybe have scholars in residence.”

Many well-known people sat for Eva Prager’s portraits including former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who was a personal friend, and his three sons, violinist Yehudi Menuhin and former governor general Jeanne Sauve.  The paintings on display include her re-creation of her grandfather’s long-lost portrait of Albert Einstein.

Prager’s plan is to have a soft opening for invited guests next month then open to the public next summer but he will also try to accommodate guests at the Algonquin.

“I have donated the house to the foundation.  It is so beautifully laid out for that kind of situation.  It is not only pictures.  People can come in and see the house and look at the pictures.”

Mayor Stan Choptiany, who has toured Dayspring, feels it will be a great asset to the tourist attractions in the town.

“It is art you would look at and enjoy.  When I talked to (Department of) Tourism, it is something they will support both from the standpoint of Dayspring as going through the house is interesting and also seeing the art.

“You will have all kinds of people who will be going to the Algonquin and many of them would connect with the art and they would want to see Dayspring because of its history.

“It enriches what Saint Andrews has to offer.  He is providing the province with another opportunity to see art and take a slice of history which is gone.  It is an opportunity to highlight his family history and it is also providing an opportunity for the people of Saint Andrews.”

“It’s an incredibly archive of the era and the people they knew.”

- Vincent Prager