Keith Graham was born in Fox River, Nova Scotia, the eldest son of Ross and Martha (Hatfield) Graham. His father was Head Planker at the Wagstaff & Hatfield Shipyard in Port Greville, and the boy grew up among the shipbuilders of the Parrsboro Shore, watching hulls take shape from timber, line and patience. It was here that a lifelong love of architecture began.
After finishing at Fox River School in 1940, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. He served with Bomber Command 6 Group, 427 (Lion) Squadron as a Pilot Officer, flying 27 sorties in Wellingtons and 24 in Lancasters.
Keith L. Graham (centre) at the opening of South Cumberland Memorial Hospital.
He graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Architecture in 1950 and began his career in Montreal, before returning to Nova Scotia in the late 1950s. Over more than five decades, his work became part of the civic fabric of the province: the Halifax North End Library, the Halifax Police Department, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Halifax Explosion Memorial and the Canadian Coast Guard College.
He died in 2018. Fox Point Inn brings him home, to the shore where it all began.