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Devenish Apartments
Calgary
Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The Devenish Apartments, built in 1911, is a three-storey red brick structure located on 17th Avenue S.W., a commercial street. The Queen Anne Revival style building is distinguished by its numerous balconies and porches and its irregular and asymmetrical facades. The building faces Tomkin’s Square, a public park and occupies one-half of a block within the boundaries of the Beltline neighbourhood.
Heritage Value
The Devenish Apartments is architecturally and historically significant as one of the largest, most elaborate and well-known apartment buildings to be built in Calgary prior to the First World War. When built in 1911, the Devenish Apartments featured the most striking architectural design of any apartment building in the city and was touted as the largest and most up-to-date apartment building, not only in Calgary, but in all of Western Canada. Originally, the building’s roofline boasted distinctively curved Jacobean-style gables and castellated towers, exemplifying the Queen Anne Revival style - a style popular for significant apartment house designs in Western Canada. While these rooftop elements have subsequently been removed, the building is distinguished by its lengthy red-brick exterior, sandstone detailing, numerous porches, and its enormous balconies, supported by massive brackets. Local architect Alexander Pirie was in charge of the building’s design with McDougall and Forster, Ltd. of Calgary serving as the contactor and builder. Pirie was also responsible the design of Calgary’s Grunwald (St. Regis) Hotel (1911-13) and several apartment buildings in the city in the late 1920s.
When built, the Devenish was unique in Calgary for the amenities and features that its design offered to its residents. The most unique feature of the 57-suite apartment building, were the built-in beds within each one or two-room suite. These built-in beds had the effect of transforming living rooms (and dining rooms in larger suites) into bedrooms at night, thereby maximizing space and eliminating the need for separate bedrooms. All suites boasted maple floors, private baths, and service call bells. The larger suites also boasted a reception hall, dressing room, six-foot long dressing mirrors, and kitchens with enameled kitchen appliances and cabinets, depending on their size. Other unique features of the building included sunrooms off the corridors for common use; laundry facilities with a room-sized dryer; basement lockers for trades-people to leave deliveries; and garbage chambers on each floor where waste was deposited for transfer to a basement incinerator. The building was designed to be reasonably ‘soundproof’ with interior walls constructed using hollow clay tiles.
The Devenish Apartments serve to recall the tremendous development and population boom to occur in Calgary between 1910 and 1913. In 1911 when the Devenish was constructed, the city’s population increased by 33 per-cent and Calgary had the second highest rate of growth of any city in North America, after Chicago. To help alleviate the acute housing shortage in Calgary resulting from the city’s explosive growth the Devenish was the largest of thirteen large apartment houses to be constructed in 1911.
The Devenish Apartments are also historically significant for their association with the initial developer and owner of the property Oscar Grant Devenish (1867-1951), one of Calgary’s most prominent citizens in the early 20th century. Prior to the First World War, Mr. Devenish operated one of Calgary’s most successful real estate and financial services company, O.G. Devenish and Company Ltd. Mr. Devenish is also remembered as one of the early oilmen of Calgary, organizing United Oils Ltd at the time of the Turner Valley oil boom in 1914, and was later the principal of Devenish Petroleum, which had wells at the Conrad oil field south-east of Lethbridge.
Character-Defining Elements
The exterior character-defining elements of the Devenish Apartments include its:
- Slight trapezium shape with irregular and asymmetrical massing, polygonal corners, lengthy irregular facades, and a three-storey, flat-roof form;
- Load-bearing brick, hollow tile and mill construction;
- Red-brick-clad facades with rock-faced sandstone detailing including window and door sills and lintels and ornamental carved insets;
- Four primary recessed entrances with open porches comprising thick, wooden Tuscan columns on paneled wooden pedestals; tongue-and-groove wood-clad ceilings; and surmounted by open balconies;
- Numerous balconies supported by massive wooden brackets with ornamental carving;
- Regular fenestration of rectangular, single and paired window openings within projecting and recessed bays, and with bay windows;
- Pressed-metal roofline cornices and mouldings and upper-storey bracketed window hoods;
- Original second and third-storey oak doorway assemblies with 3 inch-thick, glazed (bevelled glazing) double doors, sidelights with bevelled glazing, transom lights, and dentiled transom mouldings; and
- East-elevation balcony doorways with triple-pane transom lights and doors with full-length multi-pane glazing.
The interior character-defining elements of the Devenish Apartments include its:
- plan with wide central corridors;
- four open staircases with broad landings and consisting of squared balusters and a thick oak stair rail;
- flooring of three entrance vestibules comprising small, square, unglazed porcelain tiles, two of which incorporate ‘DEVENISH APARTMENTS’ lettering;
- narrow-width maple flooring throughout; and
- cast-iron radiators throughout.
Location
| Street Address: |
908 - 17 Avenue SW |
| Community: |
Calgary |
| Boundaries: |
Lots 6 to 10, Block 120, Plan A1 |
| Contributing Resources: |
Building: 1
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ATS Legal Description:
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Mer |
Rge |
Twp |
Sec |
LSD |
5
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1
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24
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16
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02
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PBL Legal Description (Cadastral Reference):
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Plan |
Block |
Lot |
Parcel |
A1
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120
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6-10
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Latitude/Longitude:
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Latitude |
Longitude |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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51.03792761920 |
-114.08260149900 |
Secondary Source |
NAD83 |
UTM Reference:
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Northing |
Easting |
Zone |
CDT |
Datum Type |
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Recognition
| Recognition Authority: |
Local Governments (AB) |
| Designation Status: |
Municipal Historic Resource |
| Date of Designation: |
2009/04/07 |
Historical Information
| Built: |
1911/01/01 |
| Period of Significance: |
N/A |
| Theme(s): |
Peopling the Land : Settlement
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| Historic Function(s): |
Residence : Multiple Dwelling
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| Current Function(s): |
Commerce / Commercial Services : Shop or Wholesale Establishment
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| Architect: |
Alexander Pirie
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| Builder: |
McDougall and Forster
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| Context: |
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Additional Information
| Object Number: |
4664-0259 |
| Designation File: |
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| Related Listing(s): |
4665-0561
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| Heritage Survey File: |
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| Website Link: |
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| Data Source: |
City of Calgary, Heritage Planning, File No. 11-105 |
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