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However, the Manager of Community Recreation at 911������ never imagined she’d write a book let alone two.

After Kelly became the first person to complete a 300-kilometre hike across the Oak Ridges Moraine in seven days last September, she began to work on , released this week by The History Press, a publisher of local and regional history and culture.

“Because I didn’t know I was going to write the first book, I had no idea I would write a second one,” Kelly says. “But I had this itch to research again.”

While writing Eaton Hall: Pride of King Township, her first book, Kelly came across the Marylake property previously owned by Sir Henry Mill Pellatt and located at Keele Street and 15 Sideroad, directly west of King Campus.

“First, I research because I want to know and then I write because I want other people to know,” she says. “Very few people make money writing local, non-fiction history. You write it because you believe there’s important history to be shared, and I believed, that with Marylake and Eaton Hall, there was just that.”

Along with the Eatons, Pellatt was one of the richest men in Canada and better known for building Casa Loma in Toronto in 1914.

In 1935, a group of Basilian priests purchased the property from Pellatt. The Basilians, only in residence for seven years, renamed the property Marylake and utilized it as part of their back-to-the-land settlement scheme. In 1942, the remaining 814 acres of Pellatt’s land were purchased by the Augustinians Fathers of Ontario, who have made the estate their monastery and retreat centre for the past 75 years.

To research Marylake, Kelly hit the municipal, provincial and national archives, pouring over thousands of documents.

“You have to really dig to find the information because it’s not like you can just Google it,” says Kelly, who serves on King’s Heritage Advisory Committee and the board of the King Township Historical Society. Among other things, she’s also the volunteer co-ordinator of Doors Open King Township.