Bell Homestead National Historic Site
Melville House at the Bell Homestead National Historic Site, Alexander Graham Bell's first home in North America
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 Location in southern Ontario
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| Established | 1910 |
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| Location | 94 Tutela Heights Road Brantford, Ontario, Canada |
| Coordinates | 43°06′27″N 80°16′13.5″W / 43.10750°N 80.270417°WCoordinates: 43°06′27″N 80°16′13.5″W / 43.10750°N 80.270417°W |
| Owner | Parks & Recreation Department, City of Brantford |
| Website | www |
| Official name | Bell Homestead National Historic Site of Canada |
| Designated | 1996 |
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The Bell Homestead National Historic Site, located in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, also known by the name of its principal structure, Melville House, was the first North American home of Professor Alexander Melville Bell and his family, including his last surviving son, scientist Alexander Graham Bell. The younger Bell conducted his earliest experiments in North America there, and later invented the telephone at the Homestead in July 1874. The approximately 4-hectare (10 1⁄2 acre) site has been largely restored to its appearance when the Bells lived there in the 1870s, and Melville House now serves as a museum to the family and to the invention of the telephone. A large visitor reception centre has also been added adjacent to Melville House.
The Henderson Home building was later added to the Homestead in 1969, being moved there from its original location in downtown Brantford. It was Canada's first telephone company business office, opened in 1877 as a predecessor of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. After being moved to the Bell Homestead it was converted into an adjunct museum on the development of telephone technology.
The Homestead is operated by the Bell Homestead Committee of the City of Brantford. It has been officially designated a National Historic Site of Canada since 1 July 1996, with its commemorative plaque being unveiled the following year by Queen Elizabeth II during the 150th anniversary year celebrations for the birth of Alexander Graham Bell. Melville House has been described as "...this shrine, where lingers the spirit of the great inventor".
The Bell Homestead period began with the arrival of the Bell family in the summer of 1870 from their native Scotland, where two of their sons had died of tuberculosis and their middle son, Alexander Graham Bell, was additionally stricken and being consumed by disease. The Bell Homestead complex in the present day consists of several buildings with their own origins. The principal building at the site is Alexander Melville Bell's farmhouse, Melville House, along with its related greenhouse conservatory, outbuildings and fruit orchard. The farmhouse and its farmland were acquired for preservation as a museum in 1909. The Henderson Home, which had served as Canada's first telephone business office in downtown Brantford, was later moved to the site in 1969 and renovated extensively in 1970, to convert it into a separate telephone museum under the principal sponsorship of the county's largest telephone carrier, Bell Canada. As well, a tea house, a visitor reception centre with a mini audio-video theatre and related facilities were also added to the homestead to accommodate visitors and tour groups.
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