Lougheed House changed jobs several times between 1938 and the 1990s, and women sit at the centre of most of them. You probably know the sandstone mansion as a heritage site. It also trained domestic workers and housed army women, and in the 1950s it hosted a Red Cross blood donor clinic.
Start with the building. Canada’s Historic Places register says Beaulieu, the name the national designation uses, was built in 1891 for James Alexander Lougheed and his wife Isabella Clark Hardisty, designed by James R. Bowes.
It describes an eclectic Victorian mansion mixing Chateau and Romanesque Revival elements, with rusticated sandstone walls, steep roofs, tall chimneys and art glass by Robert McCausland. It became a National Historic Site of Canada on June 10, 1992.
The register also says the house keeps its original spatial layout from 1891 to 1908 and calls it a rare survivor of its type in the West. That’s reason enough to take the building seriously.
What happened to the house after the family
Lougheed House’s own account of the women connected to the house is where it gets good. It says that from 1938 to 1940 the Dominion Youth Training Program trained young women in domestic service there. From 1941 to 1946 the Canadian Women’s Army Corps used it as barracks for female service members.
The 1950s brought a Red Cross blood donor clinic, led by Gertrude O’Keefe and staffed by nurses and lab assistants, according to the same page. A big house with many rooms suits a government that needs training space and an army that needs barracks, and later a charity that needs a clinic. Same rooms, new purpose every time.
Who saved it
In the 1990s a Conservation Committee formed by Trudy Cowan and Jennifer Bobrovitz worked to turn the house into a museum, the museum page says. Today the house is at 707 13 Ave SW and runs as an accredited museum with gardens, exhibitions and tours.
The women’s page also notes the Army’s treatment of servicewomen in the war years. It describes a whispering campaign of rumours, and says the response stressed femininity through dress codes instead of defending women’s abilities. It names Lieutenant Colonel Mary Dover, a Calgary native, as an officer who faced derogatory complaints while recruiting.
Our take is that this is the most honest way to tell a mansion’s story. A house museum can easily become a portrait of the rich family who built it. Lougheed House keeps the family and also gives the later residents a place in the record, so the sandstone holds a working history of Calgary women.
Lougheed House is at 707 13 Ave SW, and it runs tours and exhibitions alongside the gardens.
If this one hooked you, try Three women, a kitchen table and a $15 million dare, then The Calgary Tower Went Up in One Mighty Pour. Or try Calgary Was Almost Called Fort Brisebois for a change of pace.
Keep going with Calgary Buildings With More Careers Than Most Actors and Calgary’s Stagehands Union Began With 18 Names in 1911.
Quick answers
Lougheed House is at 707 13 Ave SW in Calgary. Canada’s Historic Places register says the mansion, listed as Beaulieu, was built in 1891 for James Alexander Lougheed and Isabella Clark Hardisty and designed by James R. Bowes. It became a National Historic Site of Canada on June 10, 1992.
From 1938 to 1940 the Dominion Youth Training Program trained young women in domestic service there. From 1941 to 1946 the Canadian Women’s Army Corps used it as barracks for female service members. In the 1950s it hosted a Red Cross blood donor clinic.
In the 1990s a Conservation Committee formed by Trudy Cowan and Jennifer Bobrovitz worked to turn the house into a museum. Today Lougheed House runs as an accredited museum with gardens, exhibitions and tours, at 707 13 Ave SW in Calgary.
