Meet the People in our Neighbourhood
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Louis Countinho, August 13th, 2020 |
Olwynn Hughes: So first of all, what's your name?
Louis Coutinho: It's Louis Coutinho. C-O-U-T-I-N-H-O.
OH: What year were you born in?
LC: 1953?
OH: Why did you move to Avondale, or how did you find out about Avondale?
LC: Well, we obviously are the owners of the new Avondale Sky Winery, my family is, and so, my son lives here. We live in Windsor. It's only about a 15-minute drive from home to here. We may eventually move to the Avondale area, but my son's here, so it works for us.
OH: So is the vineyard why you heard of Avondale or had you heard of it before?
LC: Oh, yeah, we’d heard of it before, and we've been visiting here before. It made it very interesting when we found the winery was for sale. My sons were quite keen and that brought us here.
OH: Have you lived in the area your whole life?
LC: In the Windsor area for 15 years, in the HRM for 30 years. So we've been around for about 45, in Nova Scotia.
OH: So you lived in the HRM for 30 years. Did you hear of Avondale then? Did you know about the Avon Spirit and all that?
LC: No, honestly never heard of it.
OH: That's okay. Not many people know about this place. So you have the vineyard now and that has the Garlic Festival, obviously down here we have Full Circle. Do you think those festivals bring a lot to Avondale?
LC: They definitely do. Now we’ve been to the garlic festivals before, haven't been to any festivals here on the waterfront. We're looking forward to that, obviously with COVID, your impact is just like we are, so this year is a little bit of a hiatus, but we're looking forward to those, and yes from our perspective, it's important to make this place a destination, and whether it's here on the waterfront or at the winery. Those are all important things for our community.
OH: What do you think Avondale has to offer to people moving here?
LC: Just the quiet rural life, you know, it's nice to be able to drive through corn fields, and farms, dairy farms, sheep farms, cattle farms, and then I see some other farmers here that grow organics. And so the clean air is a big attraction, but the people are really friendly and we've not met one person here who has not been very welcoming. I think there’s a sense of community here that I don't see in too many places that sort of really makes this place really attractive.
OH: What did you notice about Avondale when you first came here?
LC: The lushness. I like the fact that the well kept homes as you're driving in. There's people who'd like to take care of the properties, the lawns are mowed, you know it just looks generally like a well-maintained community and the other thing that we noticed was you know, there were a lot of people here that know each other and that's very comforting. So we like, we like that about the community.
OH: When you bought the vineyard did you find out any history about that property?
LC: Yes, the Mosher house was really fascinating for us, because the other buildings were brought on site. The church is, you know, from Walton and the barn was from Mantua. So those two buildings are obviously all the one is a little more local, the Mantua Barn’s a little more local. Seeing Captain Moshers house on the property and getting to know a bit of the history of Captain Mosher and boat builders, and found out some information here in the museum and the whole boat building era, that was really fascinating for me to see the connection with this community and the building on the property. Yes.
OH: What was your line of work before you bought the vineyard.
LC: I was the CAO for the town of Windsor, Chief Administrative Officer. Some people say town manager. So I was, I was their CAO for the last 14 years and prior to that I worked for the Halifax Regional Municipality.
OH: What do you see your contribution being to the community in the future?
LC: In the future? I want to be a partner in the community, and one of the things I'd like to see is whatever benefits that we accrue, also accrue to the community. And so it will be nice to be able to partner with the museum as an example, with your fundraising efforts. I’d like to engage the farmers when we have tours. There are sometimes tours that come to see the vineyard, but it would be nice to engage some of the local farming community here, and see if they’re willing to be part of the tour, so people can see how, you know, where their food comes from as an example. You have a lot of people who live in the cities that don't really know where their food comes from, but it would be nice to have the tour where people see where their corn comes from, where the milk comes from, beef comes from, that type of thing. So we've been talking to a few of the tourist companies and seeing if we can make a sort of a local, rural, community tour and can end up in our Winery, which is, which is fine. You can do a wine tour and hit every wine facility there is in Nova Scotia, or you can do a nice tour that shows rural life as it exists in Nova Scotia. So we're, we're hoping we can start doing this sort of thing, but COVID has put certain restrictions right now. So we're in the planning stages of making it happen.
OH: Okay, what do you hope to see in Avondale in the future?
LC: Well, I'd like it to stay a little bit the same, you know, you don't want to see it too commercialized, and I know that some of the residents and some of the community would probably not want to see this become a big tourist Mecca, you know, they'd want to see sustained growth, you know in a much more reasonable fashion. So whatever we do, I think it would be interesting to know what the community wants. For this area and how we can be part of making it happen for the community.
OH: Awesome. Final question. What do you love about Avondale.
LC: Everything. The weather, the clean air, the people. We've got, we've got it all, you know, got the tides. A lot of people don't experience tides. They have lakes, but it's, there's so much here. There is the whole ecology and the way people live here is attractive to us.
Louis Coutinho: It's Louis Coutinho. C-O-U-T-I-N-H-O.
OH: What year were you born in?
LC: 1953?
OH: Why did you move to Avondale, or how did you find out about Avondale?
LC: Well, we obviously are the owners of the new Avondale Sky Winery, my family is, and so, my son lives here. We live in Windsor. It's only about a 15-minute drive from home to here. We may eventually move to the Avondale area, but my son's here, so it works for us.
OH: So is the vineyard why you heard of Avondale or had you heard of it before?
LC: Oh, yeah, we’d heard of it before, and we've been visiting here before. It made it very interesting when we found the winery was for sale. My sons were quite keen and that brought us here.
OH: Have you lived in the area your whole life?
LC: In the Windsor area for 15 years, in the HRM for 30 years. So we've been around for about 45, in Nova Scotia.
OH: So you lived in the HRM for 30 years. Did you hear of Avondale then? Did you know about the Avon Spirit and all that?
LC: No, honestly never heard of it.
OH: That's okay. Not many people know about this place. So you have the vineyard now and that has the Garlic Festival, obviously down here we have Full Circle. Do you think those festivals bring a lot to Avondale?
LC: They definitely do. Now we’ve been to the garlic festivals before, haven't been to any festivals here on the waterfront. We're looking forward to that, obviously with COVID, your impact is just like we are, so this year is a little bit of a hiatus, but we're looking forward to those, and yes from our perspective, it's important to make this place a destination, and whether it's here on the waterfront or at the winery. Those are all important things for our community.
OH: What do you think Avondale has to offer to people moving here?
LC: Just the quiet rural life, you know, it's nice to be able to drive through corn fields, and farms, dairy farms, sheep farms, cattle farms, and then I see some other farmers here that grow organics. And so the clean air is a big attraction, but the people are really friendly and we've not met one person here who has not been very welcoming. I think there’s a sense of community here that I don't see in too many places that sort of really makes this place really attractive.
OH: What did you notice about Avondale when you first came here?
LC: The lushness. I like the fact that the well kept homes as you're driving in. There's people who'd like to take care of the properties, the lawns are mowed, you know it just looks generally like a well-maintained community and the other thing that we noticed was you know, there were a lot of people here that know each other and that's very comforting. So we like, we like that about the community.
OH: When you bought the vineyard did you find out any history about that property?
LC: Yes, the Mosher house was really fascinating for us, because the other buildings were brought on site. The church is, you know, from Walton and the barn was from Mantua. So those two buildings are obviously all the one is a little more local, the Mantua Barn’s a little more local. Seeing Captain Moshers house on the property and getting to know a bit of the history of Captain Mosher and boat builders, and found out some information here in the museum and the whole boat building era, that was really fascinating for me to see the connection with this community and the building on the property. Yes.
OH: What was your line of work before you bought the vineyard.
LC: I was the CAO for the town of Windsor, Chief Administrative Officer. Some people say town manager. So I was, I was their CAO for the last 14 years and prior to that I worked for the Halifax Regional Municipality.
OH: What do you see your contribution being to the community in the future?
LC: In the future? I want to be a partner in the community, and one of the things I'd like to see is whatever benefits that we accrue, also accrue to the community. And so it will be nice to be able to partner with the museum as an example, with your fundraising efforts. I’d like to engage the farmers when we have tours. There are sometimes tours that come to see the vineyard, but it would be nice to engage some of the local farming community here, and see if they’re willing to be part of the tour, so people can see how, you know, where their food comes from as an example. You have a lot of people who live in the cities that don't really know where their food comes from, but it would be nice to have the tour where people see where their corn comes from, where the milk comes from, beef comes from, that type of thing. So we've been talking to a few of the tourist companies and seeing if we can make a sort of a local, rural, community tour and can end up in our Winery, which is, which is fine. You can do a wine tour and hit every wine facility there is in Nova Scotia, or you can do a nice tour that shows rural life as it exists in Nova Scotia. So we're, we're hoping we can start doing this sort of thing, but COVID has put certain restrictions right now. So we're in the planning stages of making it happen.
OH: Okay, what do you hope to see in Avondale in the future?
LC: Well, I'd like it to stay a little bit the same, you know, you don't want to see it too commercialized, and I know that some of the residents and some of the community would probably not want to see this become a big tourist Mecca, you know, they'd want to see sustained growth, you know in a much more reasonable fashion. So whatever we do, I think it would be interesting to know what the community wants. For this area and how we can be part of making it happen for the community.
OH: Awesome. Final question. What do you love about Avondale.
LC: Everything. The weather, the clean air, the people. We've got, we've got it all, you know, got the tides. A lot of people don't experience tides. They have lakes, but it's, there's so much here. There is the whole ecology and the way people live here is attractive to us.