Address: 240 Chestnut Street at Honeyman (Map)
Built: 1909 and 1937
Contractor: Wallace and Akins (1937)
The Ches-Way Apartments was built in two stages. The original building is the large house located at 797 Broadway built circa 1909. The adjoining brick structure facing Chestnut Street was constructed in 1937. Broadway's name was changed to Honeyman Avenue when Broadway was rerouted at Maryland Street to connect with Portage Avenue in 1960. The "Ches" and "way" serve as a reminder of the original name of the intersection.
Early Residents
According to street directories of the day, the first resident of the eight-room house was John Fumerton and family in 1909. He was vice president of Thomas H. Lock and Co. a wholesale grocery business at 197 Bannatyne Street.
After just a couple of years, it became the family home of Alexander Calder. He owned a railway and steamship ticket agency that had been in operation since 1880. Soon after Calder moved in, it was announced that his son A. B. Calder, who had been the CPR's general ticket agent in Chicago, would return to Winnipeg to join his father's business.
Dr. Charles Hunter and family moved into the home in 1912. The physician taught at the U of M's Medical School and had a practice on the 7th floor of the Boyd Building on Portage Avenue. He served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps overseas During World War I reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and when he returned home resumed his practice and moved from the home. (More about Hunter below.)
The final occupant of the house as a single-family dwelling was William J. Thompson and family starting around 1919. Thompson was an accountant at the firm Geo. G Lennox and was likely a renter.
The initial round of tenants were all women: Edith Turland, Eatons employee; Mrs. Jesse Simpson, nurse; Flora Moore, milliner with a shop at 160 Stafford Street; and Helen Brown, stenographer with the provincial government.
May 13, 1930, Winnipeg Tribune
The name "Ches-Way Apartments" first appeared in January 1928 newspaper ads placed by rental agents and building owners Wallace and Akins.
The company took out a $500 building permit to put concrete piles under the house in 1935, and in April 1937 began construction on an extension that faced Chestnut Street. The two-storey with basement brick structure contained nine additional suites.
The Ches-Way addition was one of just two apartment blocks to have construction permits issued since the stock market crash of October 1929.
October 22, 1937, Winnipeg Tribune
The newly expanded Ches-Way apartments with its fifteen suites began renting around September 1937.
The building appears to have had a quiet existence over the decades until a fire in January 2018 caused it to be evacuated. Fire damage was limited but there was smoke and water damage to several suites and the building never reopened.
Eventually, the Ches-way was put up for sale and in late 2022 new owners began the renovation process.
Source: The Man Behind the Syndrome
More on Dr. Charles Hunter
Hunter was born in 1873 in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen before coming to Winnipeg. He was a a prominent physician by the time he moved to 797 Broadway (now Honeyman) with an office on the 7th floor of the Boyd Building on Portage Avenue.
Dr. Hunter enlisted to serve in the First World War with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Based in England, he quickly rose through the ranks to become a Lieutenant Colonel and distinguished himself with his work as an inspector of Canadian military hospitals and examined thousands of casualties as part of the military's Medical Board.
In 1917, Hunter made a presentation to the Royal College of Medicine about two English boys aged 8 and 10 who suffered from a rare form of dwarfism that was sometimes referred to at the time as "gargoyleism". That presentation led to research into the genetic disorder and it was eventually named Mucopolysaccharidosis type II or "Hunter's Syndrome". (For more about Hunter's role, see his entry in The Man Behind the Syndrome by P. and G. Beighton, which is also the source of the above image.)
Hunter resumed his practice after the war but by that time his wife Marjorie had relocated to an apartment block. It was common during the war when the "man of the house" went overseas for spouses and family to have to relocate to smaller premises or move in with family due to the drop in household income.
Hunter is described in Manitoba Medicine: A Brief History as "a short, irascible Scot". He continued his own practice until 1922 and taught at the U of M until 1933 when he was made professor emeritus. A collection of his papers are at the University of Manitoba College of Medicine Archives.
Hunter and died in March 1955 at the age of 82 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.
Related:
For more images of the Ches-Way Apartments.
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