Today, the Standing Policy Committee on Property and Development decided to vote down the motion to remove the historical designation from Kelly House which, in turn, would have allowed the owner to apply for a demolition permit.
The application to de-list has been known for a few weeks now, the current owner wanting additional parking for his neighbouring building. It's another case of demolition y neglect as, having owned it for 15 years, it sat empty for nearly a decade.
The Queen Ann style house has quite an interesting history (here's a full backgrounder on Kelly House from the city's Historical Buildings Committee). Here are a few tidbits:
Kelly House sits on land originally owned by Alexander McDermot who sold it off to Thomas and Michael Kelly. The Kelly Brothers were a pioneer family in the construction industry in early Winnipeg with such firms as Kelly Bros. and Thomas Kelly and Son. Their reach expanded as far as Vancouver for some projects.
Aside from buildings, they were also responsible for many public works including bridges and roads and the above Winnipeg first noted in the The Nor'Wester of July 29, 1897.
Michael's portfolio of works include the old Post Office (Portage Ave), the Law Courts (Broadway) and the Boyd Building (Portage Ave) to his credit.
Thomas’ works include the Grain Exchange Building, the Free Press Building, the Imperial Bank (Millennium Centre), and the Bank of Nova Scotia (A.A. Heaps Building).
Michael began construction of Kelly House in September 1882 and lived there for five years before renting it out to James H Cadham who lived there for another four. Cadham, too, was an architect and builder responsible for many of the great buildings in the Exchange District, many built during the time he lived on Adelaide. The Galt Building (103 Princess) and Whitla Building (70 Arthur) are two of over twenty buildings he designed.
Cadham’s son, who lived at Kelly House until he was 11 years old, was Frederick Todd Cadham a pioneering doctor, long time professor at the U of M and head of the provincial lab, (which was later named Cadham Lab in his honour). In late 1901 the Cadham's moved out and by that time the commercial activity of Exchange District had overpowered the small residential district within it. Kelly House became a a lodging house still owned by Kelly:
Morning Telegram, Nov 20, 1901 p3
The Kelly name was sullied with the Manitoba Legislature Scandal. Under growing allegations of tender kickbacks, misappropriation of funds and theft of building materials, the construction process was stopped in 1915 and a Royal Inquiry was held. The inquest brought down the government and sullied the reputations and bank accounts of many. Micheal, however, was cleared of involvement by the Inquiry. (For a more detailed account of the scandal see Cherney's articles in WREN: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5).
From 1921 to 1948 the city owned the building. In 1979 the building was given heritage status as the city found that:
“The House at 88 Adelaide street is significant for both architectural and historic reasons” (source:
Historic Buildings Committee Report).
Since that time, the Winnipeg Film Group was based there from 1982 until their move to Artspace (one of Cadham's cretions!) in 1986. Someone told me that some scenes from Guy Madden's Tales from the Gimli Hospital were shot in the basement ?!
Despite sitting empty for almost a decade, Kelly House was recently featured in a series of juvenile fantasy books by Rae Bridgman as the entry point to the secret world in which the books are set.
The Kelly House reprieve is for a three month period to allow the owner and CentreVenture to find a solution.
Related:
Save Kelly House facebook group
Bonus !!
Here are a few newspaper clips give a sense of what Kelly's neighbourhood would have been like. The residential nature can be seen in the ads for houses and hotels:
Wpg Daily Sun, July 27, 1883:
Daily Nor'Wester, March 8, 1895:
Wpg Daily Sun, June 27, 1883:Wpg Daily Sun, May 13, 1882:
Some neighbourhood businesses where Kelly may have shopped:
Wpg Daily Sun, April 5, 1882:
Daily Nor'Wester, Oct. 2, 1885:
The neighbourhood didn't get sidewalks, though, until 1894 !
Daily Nor'Wester July 24, 1894:
My Kelly House Series:
Part 1: Still Standing ... for now
Part 2: The Creative Types
Part 3: The Save
Part 4: A 2010 Update (soon !)
This year, the start to the U.S. holiday shopping season included a Wal-Mart employee being trampled to death by crazed customers.
From a shopper at the scene of Damour's death: “When they (police) were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”
