It was purchased by the provincially-owned Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1969, which undertook a preservation effort culminating in May 1971, when the property was re-opened as a museum.

[1] In Niagara-on-the-Lake, an economic decline that began in the late 19th century left the town with plenty of its early buildings, no "unsightly factories, warehouses, or tracts of undistinguished workers' housing", and a "pre-industrial, upper-class streetscape".

[1] The end of World War II sparked development, so at a town planning board meeting held on 5 February 1962, a proposal was made to establish a local heritage organization.

[2] The local survey was conducted by architect Peter John Stokes,[3] who was the "foremost architectural historian" of the province at the time.

[2][5] From the 1860s until the survey was conducted, only minor exterior modifications had been made to the building, and its interior fixtures and layout had remained "remarkably intact".

[5] Fearing that the store would be sold, the Niagara Foundation approached the Ontario College of Pharmacy (OCP) in 1963 to propose a partnership to preserve the building and its contents.

[5] Two years later, the Ministry of Tourism and Information still had not acted on the minister's promise, so the partnership undertook its own plans for restoration.

[7] It solicited and received commitment from the federal government to cover half the cost of the restoration project, and on 10 July 1969 the OHF purchased the property from the Niagara Foundation.

[3] In April 1970, the provincial OHF and the federal Indian Affairs and Northern Development department signed a contract to fund the CA$38,000 project (equivalent to $294,000 in 2023[8]).

[3] With little information about the site having been published throughout its history, Stokes referred to photographs from 1905 and later, and the underlying physical attributes present in the early 1970s, to guide the restoration.

[12] He bought the current building from Edward Campbell in 1869, making significant renovations to it, among them lowering the floor, raising the ceiling, and installing black walnut counters and an ornate dispensary.

[13] Field would operate the business until 1964, when his ailing health forced him to retire, and he granted the Niagara Foundation and Ontario College of Pharmacy the right of first refusal.

[14] From the 1820s to 1840, Starkwather and Brown advertised in the Colonial Advocate the availability of garden seeds "of all descriptions" collected by the Shakers of New Lebanon in New York.

[14] The records of the Niagara Apothecary suggest "habitual drug use" amongst a subset of its clientele, including those who self-medicated leading to addiction.

[20] In a paper published in Material Culture Review in late 1985, author Ernst Stieb described it as "the most authentic restoration of its kind in Canada and perhaps in North America".

[23] The restoration was consistent with early apothecaries in Ontario, but did not capture the intent of Spafford, who became owner of the drugstore in 1852, to modernize the facility and differentiate it from his competitors.