285 College Avenue - Stratford Hall

© 2024, Christian Cassidy

Stratford Hall in 2022 (Google Street View)

Place: Stratford Hall
Address: 285 College Avenue (Map)
Opened: 1910
Architect: David W. Bellhouse
Developer: J. E. Wilson

October 31, 1927, Winnipeg Free Press

Construction on Stratford Hall began in late 1909 and by the end of December, its first eight suites were filled with the rest ready for occupancy by the end of February 1910.

This was an era of great transformation in the North End with many large sections of former river lots being converted into residential streets. This block, bounded by Mountain and College avenues and Main and Charles streets, went from mostly vacant land to full of homes and two large apartment blocks in just a couple of years.

Source: Armstrong’s Point Heritage Conservation District Study, City of Winnipeg

The architect of Stratford Hall was David W. Bellhouse.

Trained in England, Bellhouse came to Canada in 1883 and initially settled on a farm at Cypress River. He and his wife relocated to Winnipeg in 1896 where he went to work for several well-known architects before working as a draughtsman for the CPR from 1902 to 1906. He left the CPR to start his own practice which he ran until 1938.

Primarily known for residential work, including three houses on Middle Gate, Bellhouse also designed the original Lakeview Hotel in Gimli (1906), the Henderson Building on Bannatyne Street, and St. Edwards Roman Catholic Church on Arlington Street in 1913.

Bellhouse was president of the Manitoba Association of Architects on two occasions.

September 18, 1918, Winnipeg Free Press

Stratford Hall contained 29 suites of three and four rooms that originally rented for $25 to $37 per month. Each suite featured a screened balcony, full bathroom and oak flooring. The building was built with white pressed brick featuring Tyndal tone trim, (the red paint job came ca. 2014).

The 1911 census shows around 115 people living in the building. Those listed in the Henderson Directory for that period, which only included working adults or retirees, were:

Clifford Bassett, clerk at HBC; Frank Boult, draughtsman at CPR; Wm. Bowman, salesman at Karn Morris Pianos; Milton J. Crosby, clerk at CPR freight depot; A. J. Cunningham, inspector at CPR boxcar department; Roy Dart, swiitchman at CPR,;James A Davidson, electrician; H. J. Donnely, conductor at CPR; L. J. Flanagan, salesman; R. E. Goodwin, switchman at CPR; Arno Green, assistant manager Crystal Spring Water Co.; Albert Halley, fur cutter; Frank Hanson, clerk at Ackland and Son; J. A. Hawley, fur cutter at Holt Renfrew; D. G. M. Hayes; A. Irish; Stanley Lewis, clerk Henderson Directories; Frank Mitchell, manager of F. B. Mitchell Co.; Marcus Moore, International Harvester Co.; Susie P. Moor, clerk at Glines and Co.; William Page, cashier J. H. Ashdown; W. E. Pilkey; Sidney Restall, clerk at city; John Royle, janitor; Reginald Scarratt, clerk freight department of CPR; Wilfred Searle, engineer at CPR; Walter Slater, owner Imperial Barber Shop; Ernest Stewart, travelling salesman; Harry P. Tanner, department manager Dunn Bros.; J. H. Thomas, manager W. J. Inglis Co.; Thomas Thompson, ticket agent Great Northern Railway; Wyman E. Towns, clerk McNeil McLean and Garland; Charles Uhl, city inspector; Herbert Walker, travelling salesman; William White, clerk W. H. Stone Co..

August 1, 1944, Winnipeg Tribune

Some residents of the block were on active duty in the First World War. They included Joseph Edwards of the Royal Flying Corps, Sgt. Roy Russell Robbins of the 100th Grenadiers, William Dart, and Captain George Gomez Nagy. All appear to have made it home.

In the Second World War, Warrant Officer A. F. Parker, Trooper George "Bus" Jack, George Edward Thomas, and John "Jack" Lindsay called Stratford Hall home.

Thomas, a lineman (for an electricity or phone company), became a signalman with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals and during his tour of duty was awarded the Military Medal for showing "courage and devotion to duty which was an example and inspiration to all ranks of his section and worthy of the highest tradition of his corps." Unfortunately, the newspapers did not go into further detail about Thomas and his award. According to a Free Press article from July 1946, Thomas was one of 59 Manitobans who was on hand to receive his medal from the Governor General at Fort Osborne.

Jack Lindsay, 37, worked at Eaton's and relocated to Stratford Hall with his wife and two children before he enlisted. Originally from Airdrie, Scotland, Lindsay came to Winnipeg in his late teens. Assigned to the Canadian Armoured Corps Training Centre at Camp Borden, Lindsay was killed on active duty in a motorcycle accident in July 1944. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery.

Stratford Hall in May 2012 (Google Street View)

In recent years, Stratford Hall has been the scene of many gruesome crimes.

In November 2020, police responded to a call at the building and found a homicide victim inside. In September 2023, a man was shot inside the building and died on the boulevard out front. In February 2024, three police officers were shot and wounded during an armed standoff in the building.

Winnipeg Police Service told the Free Press that they had responded to 108 reports of violent crimes in or just outside the building between October 2022 and October 2023.

In July 2024, tenants were told that the building was being immediately shut down and were refunded the remainder of July's rent. The units were cleared of furniture and personal belongings and the building locked. After an outcry from governments, Indigenous organizations, and mental health and homelessness advocates, there was an about-face and the building reopened a week later.

 

585 Ellice Avenue - Mac's Building

© 2024, Christian Cassidy

Place: Mac's Building
Address: 585 Ellice Avenue (Map)
Built: 1912
Architect: John D. Atchison. (Also see)
Builder: John A. Moxam Construction

The Mac's Building was designed in 1912 by John D. Atchison, one of Winnipeg's foremost architects of the early 1900s.

This would have been a small project for Atchison as he had already designed the original Assiniboine Park Pavillion (1908), Maltese Cross Building on King Street (1909), Great-West Life Building on Lombard Avenue (1911), and Union Trust / National Bank Building (1912).

July 1913, Manitoba Free Press

I can't find period newspaper mentions of the building's construction. This would have been a small suburban project, hardly newsworthy compared to the banking halls and high-rise office towers rising in the downtown during one of Winnipeg's busiest construction years. 

The block was built for and presumably named after local developer and real estate agent Neil T. MacMillan. MacMillan's involvement could help explain how the services of an architect of Atchison's stature were acquired for such a small project.

MacMillan's real estate firm, MacMillan and Vollans, marketed several lots in and around Ellice Avenue and Sherbrook Street in the previous decade. A building they commissioned on one of their properties was the Casa Loma block in 1909.

MacMillan likely kept this corner lot for himself as his next company, N. T. MacMillan Co., managed the Mac's Building for several years after it opened.

Born in West Elgin, Ontario, MacMillan came to Manitoba as a young man in the 1890s and settled in Morden where he got into the grain trade. He relocated to Winnipeg in 1903 where he took an interest in the city's lucrative real estate market and was first elected to the board of the Winnipeg Real Estate Exchange in 1906.

MacMillan was also a long-time member of the Winnipeg Industrial and Development Bureau and served as its president in 1908 and 1909.

Due to his varied business interests and position with Industrial Bureau, MacMillan travelled throughout North America on business and was a great booster of Winnipeg and its fortunes. In a 1907 Winnipeg Tribune interview he even managed to put a positive spin on the city's weather by stating: "The climactic conditions here make it one of the healthiest on the continent."

The N. T. MacMillan Co. was an active real estate and property management company until 1924 when MacMillan relocated to Orange City, Florida. He continued to dabble in Florida real estate until 1929 and died in Jacksonville, Florida in May 1931.

University of Winnipeg Archives, Western Canada Pictorial Index,
City of Winnipeg Hydro Collection – A1791, 58507

The Mac's Building has had several owners over the decades. The block wasn't large enough for its various sales to be newsworthy but building permit information helps piece together an approximate timeline of its owners.

MacMillan kept the building until at least 1917 and it was bought by the Union Bank / Royal Bank in the early 1920s. It was then owned for decades by the various operators of its cinema, including Western Theatres in the 1930s, Allied Amusements from the 1940s to 1960s, and the Holunga family from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

In more recent decades, it was owned by New Life Ministries from 2004 to 2013. The Adam Beach Film Institute acquired it in 2014. Andrew Davidson, author of the novel The Gargoyle, purchased it in 2019.

The building's exterior has remained remarkably unchanged in its 112 years.

The Mac's is not a large building but it has three distinct sections. This post is divided into the main floor retail space, upstairs suites, and Mac's Theatre.

RETAIL SPACE

Top: October 23, 1908, The Voice

Bottom: J. R. Robinson ca. 1916 (source)

The first retail tenant of the Mac's building was pharmacist Joseph R. Robinson of Gertrude Street who relocated his practice here from Logan Avenue and Reitta Street.

Born in Toronto, Robinson came to Winnipeg to attend the Manitoba College of Pharmacy. The only J. R. Robinson listed in The History of the Faculty of Pharmacy was part of its first graduating class of 1900.

Robinson's store remained at this address until 1921 and would return three years later for a second run.

March 30, 1922, Winnipeg Tribune

A Union Bank of Canada branch opened here in 1921 which forced Robinson to move across the street to 602 Ellice Avenue.

Established in Quebec City in 1865, the Union Bank made inroads in Western Canada with the expansion of the railway and it opened a large regional headquarters in Winnipeg in 1904. By 1911, 145 of its 242 branches were located in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the following year the bank's head office was relocated to Winnipeg.

The Ellice and Sherbrook branch, managed by William R. Learmonth, was the Union's fifteenth in Winnipeg.

The Union Bank likely bought the building as an investment property to install its branch there. Despite the purchase, the branch only lasted until 1924. The reason for its closure wasn't reported on in local papers but it may have had to do with an upcoming merger.

May 23, 1925, Winnipeg Tribune

In May 1925, it was announced that the government had given the green light for the Royal Bank of Canada to purchase the assets of the Union Bank. The merger was ratified by Union Bank shareholders in June and the only major chartered bank headquartered in Western Canada disappeared.

Perhaps this branch was closed knowing that this merger was on the horizon. The Royal already had branches at Sherbrook and Portage and at William and Sherbrook with a Sherbrook and Sargent branch in the works. This made an Ellice and Sherbrook location unnecessary.

The Union's demise created the opportunity for Robinson to move back to his former location. 

Robinson, a long-time resident of 497 Gertrude Street who never married, ran the pharmacy until 1936 and then retired. He died in April 1949 at the age of 70 and is buried in Brookside Cemetery.

September 15, 1939, Winnipeg Free Press

Robinson sold the business to Samuel Goodman, a fellow graduate of the U of M's School of Pharmacy from the class of 1929.

After graduating, Goodman went to work for the five-store chain Roberts' Drug Store and became assistant manager of its new Sargent and Sherbrook branch in 1933.

July 31, 1947. Lögberg

The next owner of the business was Reuben "Rudy" Goldman who graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in pharmacy in 1937.

After service in the war, Goldman bought the business in 1945 and over the years it was known as Rudy's Pharmacy, Rudy's Discount Drugs, Gurvy and Rudy's Pharmacy (with business partner Harry Gurvey.) For a time, he owned a second pharmacy on Logan Avenue called Westwood Pharmacy.

Goldman leased out the store portion and its lunch counter in the 1980s but continued to run the pharmacy counter until around 1990. He died in 2008.

March 18, 1966, Winnipeg Free Press

It was during Rudy's tenure that the building saw one of its saddest moments.

Ten-year-old Kenneth  Meisner got into an argument with a boy or boys in the back lane between Sherbrook and Furby streets when one of the older boys brandished a pocket knife and stabbed him three times. A passing motorist found the unconscious boy and carried him into Rudy's where he was laid out on the floor.

An ambulance filling up at a neighbouring gas station was summoned and within a few minutes, the boy was off to the Children's Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

It was a rough time for Mrs. Meisner. She and her children moved to Sherbrook Street just a week earlier after losing everything in an apartment fire. Not long after being informed of the death of her son, she was told by police that her other son, Kenneth's half-brother, was arrested for his murder.

Holunga siblings, Oct. 6, 1988, Winnipeg Free Press, (by Rob Mullin)

It was the Holunga family who leased the store from Goldman in the 1980s and renamed it Ellice Variety. The family was familiar with the building as their father, Hector, ran the Mac's Theatre since 1966, (see below for more about him.)

Aside from the pharmacy counter, Ellice Variety was a gift shop, postal outlet, and lunch counter with about ten seats. The family purchased the store and likely the building in 1986.

Ellice Variety was a neighbourhood institution until its closure in March 2003.

In April 2004, just weeks after Ellice Variety closed, Rev. Harry Lehotsky announced that his New Life Ministries bought the Mac's Building.

It converted the former Ellice Variety retail space into a 40-seat community-friendly café, renovated the upstairs suites for low-income housing, and fixed up the long-vacant theatre space to show films. The Ellice Theatre and Café opened in February 2005.

The ministry continued to operate the building after the death of Lehotsky in 2006, but in August 2012 announced that it would sell it to concentrate its efforts on managing two nearby residential buildings it owned. The Ellice Café's last day was August 24, 2012.

In April 2013, it was reported that the Adam Beach Film Institute purchased the building. Actor Adam Beach grew up in the neighbourhood making it a homecoming of sorts.

The main floor retail space became Feast Café Bistro which was opened in December 2015 by Christa Bruneau-Guenther. It specializes in Indigenous-themed food and it is still in operation in 2024.

UPSTAIRS SUITES

Nov. 7, 1913, The Voice

The upstairs of the Mac's Building initially contained three office spaces. The first tenants were: Dr. James R. McRae, physician, in suite 1; Mrs. Margaret Madill, hairdresser, in suite 2; and the Winnipeg Motorcycle Club began meeting there in September 1913 and lasted just a year before moving on.

By 1917, the offices emptied and two residential units appeared. This became four units by 1920.

The 1921 street directory lists the following households: Charles Hill, a mechanic at Central Tire and Vulcanizing on Portage Avenue, in unit 3; Alex Lytle, a clerk at Eatons, in suite 5; William Richardson, a clerk at Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment Clinic in unit 1; and J. R. Wilkinson, no occupation, in unit 7. (Despite the varied suite numbers, there does not appear to have been more than four suites upstairs.)

The upstairs of the Mac's Building continues to house four residential units.


MAC'S THEATRE

June 19, 1914, Winnipeg Tribune

The 320-seat Mac's Theatre opened as a moving picture house with little fanfare in late 1913. There were no write-ups or ads for its shows until 1914.

A small, independent neighbourhood cinema could not rely solely on second-run silent films to make money - it also had to be a theatre for hire. Mac's had a small stage area that over the decades featured countless music recitals, lectures, political speeches, and showings of independent documentaries by travelling 'movie men' who would set up for a day or two and move on.

The Fundamentalist Association of United Church Laity called the Mac's home through 1928 offering sermons every Sunday.

Odeon-Morton Coming Soon intro, 1979 (FT Depot on YouTube)

The first manager of the Mac's Theatre was Henry Morton who wanted the venue to be family-friendly and “...would not tolerate the showing of any picture which would mar the feelings of the most fastidious.”

Admission was a dime and some weekend night showings included prize giveaways.

One 1915 'advertorial' about its upcoming movies began with the lines: "Everybody has one problem: Where can I get good entertainment for a dime? There is one answer: The Mac's Theatre, corner Sherbrooke and Ellice Avenues. Here at all times one is sure of the best and greatest of pictures."

Morton managed the Mac's for only a couple of years but he would go on to create his own cinema chain in the 1930s and 40s that owned movie palaces such as the Strand, Garrick, and Walker. It merged with Odeon Theatres of Canada in the early 1940s to create the Odeon-Morton Theatre Company which he served as president of until he died in 1951.

In 1980, Paul Morton sold the Morton family share of the company to Canadian Odeon Theatres Ltd. At the time, Odeon-Morton operated six cinemas and two drive-ins in Winnipeg and had more screens in Saskatchewan. After other mergers through the 1980s, the North America-wide Cineplex Odeon Corporation was created.

March 8, 1919, Winnipeg Tribune

Another early manager of the Mac's Theatre was George Farncombe. He was likely originally from the Brandon area and worked in the art industry. The year before he became proprietor of the Mac's Theatre in 1918, he was a travelling salesman for Winnipeg's Canadian Art Galley on Main Street.

The Mac's Theatre had a small role in the Winnipeg General Strike during Farncombe's tenure. A tactic of striking workers was to run volunteer replacement firemen off their feet by calling in false alarms to fire halls. In the first couple of days of the strike, there were 76 false alarms for Mac's Theatre.

Farncombe left Mac's around 1929 to go back into sales for  the local office of a U.S.-based publisher called the Grolier Society.

November 12, 1931,  Lögberg

The early 1930s was a tough period for neighbourhood cinema owners as their costs soared and revenues dropped.

The advent of "talking pictures" in the late 1920s put pressure on owners to make costly renovations to their spaces or find themselves behind the times showing silent films that few people wanted to see. The Depression meant that even most working-class families did not have the money to spare to see films on a regular basis causing their customer base to shrink.

The first Winnipeg cinema to be wired for sound was The Metropolitan in late 1928 and over the next couple of years most other cinemas followed suit. Mac's was a bit behind the times as it closed in the summer of 1931 for extensive renovations and reopened in October as a "talking picture house". 

Saturday afternoons were reserved for Westerns and it showed double bills throughout the week.

December 23, 1931 Heimskringla

The new owners of Mac's who likely foot the bill for adding the sound system were James Gudmundur Christie and his wife Jonina. In the December 23, 1931 edition of Winnipeg's Icelandic-language newspaper Heimskringla, he wrote a letter to the editor encouraging people to come down to the newly renovated venue.

The following translation of his letter is with the aid of Google Translate:

"The only cinema in the city run by an Icelander. Let's blame the very difficult times, I have decided to set entrance to a show at Mac's at only 15 cents for adults and 5 cents for children who appear at 7 pm. At that time I guarantee to show as good a pictures as other houses in the city. The house is cozy, warm and newly renovated. Talking machine is of its best type. Come down to Mac's Theatre and save money. Ellice is wide, nice (for parking cars).

Merry Christmas, 

J. G. Christie."

The Christies' Lakeview Hotel, Gimli (Source: Glimpses of Gimli)

James and Jonina Christie came to Canada from their native Iceland in 1899 and first settled in Gimli where they were the first owners of the original Lakeview Hotel (which later became part of the original Bethel Home). They adopted a son named William in 1918 and after a stint in Selkirk moved to Winnipeg in 1930.

In some street directories, Jonina is listed as the manager of the Mac's Theatre and James' name does not appear. This suggests that they may still have had business interests in Gimli or Selkirk and he stayed there for periods to manage them. Their Winnipeg home for a time was suite 2 above the Theatre.

The Christies hired staff to help with the theatre through the 1940s. The 1944 street directory lists Mrs. Mary Dunlop as a door girl, W. H. Margot as the projectionist, and Miss Margaret Reeves as the usherette.

February 23, 1948, Winnipeg Tribune

James Christie made headlines in February 1938 when he thwarted an armed holdup at the Mac's Theatre.

Described by the Tribune as a "spunky 65-year-old", Christie was working in the box office inside the theatre lobby when a young man in a dark coat pulled out a pistol and said, "Put 'em up and let's have it".  Instead of panicking or handing over the money, Christie grabbed the man's coat and yelled out "There's a man with a gun". This brought patrons out of the theatre hall into the lobby when the man broke free and ran down the street with some patrons giving chase. He was never caught.

Christie told the Tribune that he was not scared as he had been in scrapes before when he owned a hotel. He felt the odds were that the gun had no bullets in it and that nobody desperate to hold up a box office was willing to kill for such a small amount. (He obviously forgot about the death of Constable Charles Gillis in 1936 after a botched gas station robbery of thirty cents.)

In the early 1940s, the Christies moved from an apartment on Maryland Street back to suite 2 of the Mac's Block. James died there in June 1943 at aged 70 and is buried in Gimli cemetery. Jonina died in February 1963 at age 85 at a room she rented in a home on Cambridge Street.

June 20, 1956, Winnipeg Free Press

The Mac's had two short-term managers until around 1951 and then there are no street directory listings for a few years. As the theatre rarely advertised during this time it is unclear if it was operating as a cinema during this period..

A Winnipeg Free Press article in 1956 about the plight of independent cinemas notes that Mac's was a "Miles-run house", referring to Jack Miles' Allied Entertainment Ltd. and its chain of neighbourhood theatres.

Allied Amusements was created by Miles in 1912 to run a single theatre, The Palace on Selkirk Avenue. By the end of the 1920s, it had grown into a chain of four with the addition of custom-built venues The Roxy (on Henderson), The Rose (on Sargent), and The Plaza (on Marion at Tache). The Uptown Theatre, Miles' largest and most opulent venue, opened in 1931. Others were added over the years as independents sold up or small chains went under.

Some independent owners complained that after Miles' large theatres were done with a first-run movie, it would be sent to Mac's before it was made available to them as a second-run film. They felt that this holdup was unfair and a sign of how much influence Miles had when it came to local film distribution.

Many neighbourhood cinemas were on the ropes by the late 1950s as television had established itself as the dominant media for mass entertainment. Some cinema chains folded or merged and many of their buildings were demolished or converted to other uses. Even Allied fell on hard times. Its large Uptown and Roxy became bowling alleys in 1960 and The Palace was gutted to become a retail store in 1964.

The remnants of Allied's community cinema empire, including the smaller Deluxe, Windsor, College, Starland, and Mac's, continued to advertise together until late 1965.

The Mac's Theatre was bought by Nestor Holunga in 1966. He was the son of Romanian immigrants who in 1946 built and ran a theatre in Inglis, Manitoba.

Initially, Holunga kept up the tradition of showing second-run mainstream movies and then began to intermix foreign-language films from countries such as Germany, Poland and Ukraine.

The success of the foreign language films brought attention and new investors.

April 4, 1975, Winnipeg Tribune

Three Winnipeg businessmen: Basil Lagopolous, (who ran a boutique store in Osborne Village); David Rich; and Will Hechter (a law student), reached a lease agreement with Holunga and invested $1,200 to make minor renovations to the space.

The venue was rechristened "Cinema 3". The name, Hechter would later explain, was in response to the new Garrick Cinema and Northstar Inn opening a "Cinema 1" and "Cinema 2" under the same roof. The partners thought that Cinema 3 sounded "kind of ridiculous".

The venue specialized in "interesting foreign and English-language movies which are unable to gain bookings at the more commercially-minded Winnipeg Cinemas" and opened on September 24, 1969, with La guerre est finie by French director Alain Resnais.

Ca. 1980s. Image credit: Howard Curle

In a March 1970 Free Press article the owners expressed surprise at how successful the venue was having grossed $20,000 in the first five months despite only two showings a day, four days a week. This was thanks in part to the French film The Two of Us that played played for almost nine weeks.

The Cinema 3 partners had to concentrate on their main businesses in the early 1970s and Chris Jones was brought in to manage the venue. In 1974, Hechter returned to look after the bookings and management and brought in Holunga, who still had the lease on the building, to look after the front of house and manage the small staff.

Holunga was both managing the venue and booking the films by 1978.

Holunga siblings, Oct. 6, 1988, Winnipeg Free Press, (Rob Mullin)

The Holunga children, Bonnie, Connie and Wayne, ran Ellice Variety, formerly Rudy' Pharmacy, took over Cinema 3 from their father in 1980 and continued the tradition of showing foreign language films. Connie and Bonnie worked the front of house and Wayne did the books and at times was the projectionist. They likely purchased the entire building from Goldman in 1986.

According to a 2003 Free Press article, Cinema 3 closed around 2000 and Ellice Variety closed in March 2003.

When New Life Ministries bought the Mac's Building in April 2004, they renovated the 220-seat theatre which reopened as the Ellice Theatre in February 2005.

It was mainly a venue for hire, though for a time did show classic Hollywood films from the 1940s on an "admission by donation" basis. 

The Ellice Theatre closed in August 2012.

In April 2013, the CBC reported that actor Adam Beach, who grew up in the neighbourhood, purchased the building and the theatre would house the Adam Beach Film Institute. The organization appears to have moved to Balmoral Street after a couple of years.

 

Andrew Davidson, author of the novel The Gargoyle, purchased the building in 2019.

Extensive renovations soon began on the theatre space but were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 146-seat Gargoyle Theatre hosted its first performance on February 9, 2022.

The Gargoyle Theatre is a workshop theatre dedicated to presenting new plays and musicals by local artists.

ETCETERA

Related:
My Flickr Album of the Mac's Building

590 Victor Street - Acadia Court Apartments

© 2021, Christian Cassidy

Place: Acadia Court Apartments
Address: 590 Victor Street (Map)
Constructed: 1913 - 1914
Architect: Edmund Walter Crayston
Contractors: Peterson Bros.
Cost: $60,000

May 7, 1913, Winnipeg Tribune

The building permit for this 24-unit block was issued in May 1913 to Peterson Brothers, who were both the owners and contractors. It was designed by architect Edmund W. Crayston who designed at least a half-dozen apartments in the city.

This was the golden age of the construction of three-storey walk-up apartments. Thirty permits were issued for such buildings between January 1 and August 1, 1913 alone.

William and James Peterson came to Manitoba from Ontario in the 1880s and became iron workers by trade. In 1903, they established Peterson Bros. Iron Works at 132 Aberdeen Street. This appears to be the first permit issued to the company for the construction of a building. Newspaper reports indicate that another was granted in 1926 for Furby Street and one in 1929 for Assiniboine Avenue.

October 12, 1914, Winnipeg Tribune

The first round of "for rent" ads for Acadia Court appeared in local newspapers in October 1913.  “Three room suites” on upper floors rented for $37 per month. 

Unfortunately, the Petersons did not own the block for long. According to William's 1929 obituary, the company was "shut down at the start of the war" in 1914. It is unclear why. The brothers, it appears, sold the building to an investment company and it is around this time that "Court" was dropped from its name.

The 1915 street directory provides a list of the initial round of tenants. They included:

Suite 1: John Benson - elevator operator at government building 
Suite 2: Emily Oddleifson - clerk at Whites stores, and S. Oddleifson, caretaker
Suite 4: Mrs. F. Kitchen
Suite 14: Herman Larson - Rembrandt Photo Studio.
Suite 19: The Knirck family. (J. C. Knirck - farmer, Alfred Knirck - clerk at Gault’s, Max Knirck - reporter at R. G. Dunn and company, and Blondina Knirck - a clerk at T. Eaton Co.)
Suite 21: James Roper - Chief clerk at Jones Boxer and Co.
Suite 22: Mrs. Iva Fanning, Orr Fanning - clerk T. Eaton Co., and Frederick C Henley - travelling salesman for Willson Stationers.
Suite 23: H. Sheppard - revisor at the Mutual Film Co.
Suite 24: James Calla - inspector for the city sewer department.
Suite 25: McConachie family (Mrs. Margaret McConachie, Robert P.  McConachie - clerk at Oldfield Kirby and Gardner, Anne McConachie - stenographer at Wm. Grassie Co., and Maggie McConachie.)

Source: Canadian Virtual War Memorial

The timing of the Acadia's opening meant that several early residents were there because of the war.

Single men often gave up their apartments to move in with family or friends before they enlisted. As the pay for soldiers was very low, many couples and families had to downsize from houses to apartments or rooming houses for financial reasons when the “man of the house" enlisted.

One example of this was Joseph Andrew Bright McClure and his family. McClure, along with his wife Gertrude and their three young children, lived at 900 Aikins Street before the war. The family relocated to suite 20 Acadia Apartments just before he enlisted.

McClure, 40, went missing in action during the Battle of Vimy Ridge on August 21, 1917. His remains were never found and he was declared dead the following March.

Brothers William and Jack Purcer, who ran a contracting company together, lived on Wardlaw Street with their younger brother Garson. When the older brothers enlisted, Garson moved in with his married sister, Mrs. Margaret Butler of 5 Acadia Court. He was drafted a couple of years later.

William Purcer, the oldest brother and first to enlist, was on his way to work one day when he read a newspaper article about the mass rape and murder of Armenian women by the Turks in what is referred to today as the Armenian Genocide. He was so moved by the story that when he arrived at work he told his boss that he was going to war. He gathered up his tools and went straight to a recruitment office.

William was wounded twice during his service. He received shrapnel wounds to the head and in a later incident was shot in the chest. Both times he was repaired and sent back to the front. He then contracted trench fever and developed a severe case of rheumatism which led to him being invalided back to Canada in 1918. He listed the Acadia Apartments, his sister's place, as the address he would initially settle at.

After years of suffering from his various injuries and ailments, William died at Deer Lodge, Winnipeg's military convalescent hospital, on May 23, 1939 at the age of 55 and is buried in the Field of Honour at Brookside Cemetery.

October 9, 1936, Winnipeg Tribune

The Acadia was a popular place for young couples. Dozens of newspaper wedding notices can be found that state the newlyweds would reside there once they returned form their honeymoons. It also housed many retired couples, particularly those from Iceland, given its location in the heart of the Icelandic business hub on Sargent Avenue and next to First Lutheran Church.

One example is William and Oddny Johnson, (above). They both came from Iceland with their families as teens and married in Winnipeg in October 1886. Mr. Johnson had a career as a builder and they raised seven children. They lived here until their deaths in 1945 and 1950, respectively.

1921 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada

The Oddleifson family has a long relationship with the Acadia. Husband Sigurdur, wife Gudlaug, and at least three children, August (b. 1898), Edward (b. 1907), and Axel (b. 1909), moved into suite 2 in 1914. Sigirdur, who also went by "Sam", was the building's first caretaker.

When the children moved out, the Oddleifsons relocated to suite 6 and Sigurdur remained the caretaker of the building until 1936. He died the following year. Gudlaug continued ast the Acadia for a while then moved to Fort Garry to live with Axel and his wife before her death in 1957.

August 27, 1931, Lögberg

Axel lived with his parents in suite 6 until shortly after his graduation as an engineer from the University of Manitoba in 1931. To put himself through school he advertised tutoring services in the Free Press and the city's two Icelandic newspapers

After graduation, Axel began working for the Winnipeg Electric Company and in 1936 went to Great Falls as an electrician. He wold eventually work at all three WECo generating stations. In 1938, he married Kristjana Anderson and went to work for the Manitoba Hydro Electric Board during the construction of the Pine Falls generating station. He was in charge of electrical installation and then appointed its operational engineer in 1953.

A couple of years later, Axel and Kristjana returned to Winnipeg and bought a house on Riverwood Avenue in Fort Garry. Axel's mom moved in with them and died at the house in 1957. Sadly, Axel died the following year at age 49.

These are just a handful of the many hundreds of people that have called the Acadia Apartments home over the past 111 years.

Acadia Apartments in 2017

The Acadia closed around 2015 to undergo an extensive renovation but it appears that the owner went bankrupt in its early stages.

It was put up for mortgage sale in June 2016 with a reserved bid of $2.8 million and two years of back taxes owing. The building was described as having 18 x one-bedroom units, 2 x one-bedroom loft units, and 4 x two-bedroom units with laundry facilities in the basement. (The "lofts" were not original to the building, it was an ambitious plan by the previous owner to convert two units into one via a staircase.)

The auction did not meet the reserve bid and the building remained boarded until 2020 when a new round of renovations began. They were short lived and the building never reopened.

It was announced in January 2022 that the West Central Women's Resource Centre had received funding from the federal government's Rapid Housing Initiative to buy the block and convert it into 16 affordable units for women, gender-diverse people, and their children leaving violent situations.

An update was provided by the WCWRC in March 2024 noting that tenants will soon start moving into the block.

Related:
- My 2017 Flickr album of the Acadia's Interior
- Interior photos 2024
- 590 Victor Street UW Community Renewal Corp
- The Purcer Brothers of 590 Victor Street West End Dumplings

598 Main Street - Guest Fish Block (R.I.P.)

 © 2024, Christian Cassidy

Guest Block in middle (Google Street View)

Place: Guest Block
Address: 596 - 598 Main Street (Map)
Constructed: 1902 (north portion), 1909 (south portion)

This is a brief history of the Guest Block that burned down on March 8, 2024.

November 12, 1902, Winnipeg Free Press

June 3, 1916, Winnipeg Tribune

The north portion of this building was constructed in 1902 for local fish wholesaler William J. Fish. The main floor and basement consisted of a retail / wholesale store with a warehouse in the basement. It was described as "a most attractive place to buy fish and poultry".

Guest had his own barge of Lake Winnipeg to bring him fish and imported others, including oysters, by train from both coasts.

In the summer of 1906-07, the company expanded its cold storage warehouse located at 80 - 90 Alexander Avenue and located their head office there.

1903 Tribune ads for the Guest Block

The upper floors of the building were for offices and a small residential rooms for rent. The offices included real estate agents, dressmakers, and doctors.

The Main Street site remained a store for Guest Fish until 1909 when Guest sold the building for $45,000. The new owners built a twin building to the north which provided two retail spaces on the main floor and the address of 596 - 598 Main Street.

Despite the change in ownership, the building continued to be referred to as the Guest Block in street directories for decades later.

July 8, 1916, Winnipeg Tribune

May 24, 1939, Winnipeg Tribune

Hundreds of businesses have called this building home over the century. One constant for many decades was a cafe. early names were the Blue Eagle Cafe and Diamond Cafe.

The Castran family who came from Greece, has a long association with the Guest Block.

Soon after the building was expanded, James and Gus Castran opened a fruit and confectionery store on the main floor. That is what became Winnipeg Candy Kitchen, (see ad above.) Around 1931, Angelius "Angelo" and Gus Castran reopened the space as Caastran's Cafe (sometimes called Castran's Grill). It offered full sit-down dinners and you could get your tea leaves read in the afternoon.

By the time the cafe opened, several family members lived upstairs and they eventually purchased the building.

Castan's Cafe operated until February 1956 when a fire broke out in the kitchen. It gutted the business and caused extensive damage to the building. Angelo, the only brother left in Winnipeg, did not reopen. He retired and lived in suite 15 of the building until his death in 1969 at the age of 71.

Guest Block in the 1970s (Winnipeg Building Index)

A cafe eventually reopened in the space.

In the late 1950s, it was the 60-seat Golden Wheel Cafe. Poy Wong of 335 Alexander Ave was the proprietor and Peter Wong, the manager, lived in the building. In 1963, Albert and Mary Wong of 335 Alexander are listed as the proprietors. 

The Golden Wheel restaurant was sold in 1974 and it soon became the Country Girl restaurant that operated until at least 1985.

Full House Grocery has been the sole main floor tenant since at least 1986.

Further Reading:
598 Main Street City of Winnipeg Historical Report