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Julia Veenstra: Hitting the beach

The Hamilton painter will host the fifth edition of her Garden Party & Studio Tour on Sept. 6.

Now a five-year tradition on Beach Boulevard, local painter and café owner Julia Veenstra will host her Garden Party & Studio Tour on Sept. 6. 

The day combines her two great passions – painting and gardening – in her home along the Waterfront Trail on the Hamilton Beach Strip.

Veenstra, an acrylic painter with a signature broad-stroke, rich-colour style, is known for her whimsical animals, landscapes, florals, and architecture. 

She was a regular vendor at the One of a Kind Show in Toronto. Though her work sold well, it was exhausting and when it was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, Veenstra was relieved. But she needed to find another way to showcase her work, and settled on hosting a garden tour.

More than 1,000 people showed up in September 2021. They lined up down the street to check out Veenstra’s garden and artwork. Every year has brought strong crowds, even when it poured. 

This year’s show will include her brother-in-law Rick Veenstra, who is a woodworker, and Gilded Cage, which sells boutique fashions out of the Crown & Press café and gallery that Veenstra co-owns on Ottawa Street North. 

Veenstra, who grew up all over Hamilton, came to an amusement park on the Beach Strip when she was a child. 

She remembers there was a ferris wheel under the Skyway. When she met and married Doug, she would make him drive down the Beach Strip instead of using the Skyway because she was fascinated with the neighbourhood. She loves the historic homes that often sit alongside multi-million-dollar waterfront estates with panoramic lake views.

Her house at 363 Beach Blvd. was a fabulous find seven years ago, Veenstra says. She and husband Doug live in the rear house that overlooks Lake Ontario. A hallway connects to a dwelling dating to 1890 that faces the street where daughter Abby and her husband Justin live. They are about to have twins, Veenstra’s ninth and tenth grandchildren.

Veenstra won Trillium Awards for her garden at their former home on St. Clair Boulevard but was enthralled with the possibility of the larger garden spaces on the Beach Strip. 

“Over the seven years, we just keep tweaking it. And a garden’s never done, right?”

When Veenstra gave up her James Street North gallery space during COVID, she and Doug converted a former cinder block garage on their property into a studio. 

“It’s small but I love it. It’s got tons of natural light and when I open the doors, it sounds like the ocean is right outside.”