Historic mansion comes down brick at a time
Davies house to be rebuilt elsewhere
Construction crews are chipping out bricks and tearing up floorboards in an ambitious plan to save a historic Old Strathcona mansion by hauling it away in pieces.
The once-grand Arthur Davies house, at 10606 84th Ave., is now a gutted shell, the third floor and virtually any attractive interior fittings gone.
Workers on the second floor are in the process of removing an estimated 50,000 exterior bricks with hammers and sliding them down chutes in batches for stacking.
“At the end of the day … we will see how crazy of a project it was,” Sam Prochazka, who plans to reassemble the 465-square-metre structure elsewhere, said Monday.
“I’m not sure, but thus far it’s progressing much faster than I thought it would.”
Prochazka, who works in software, became interested in saving the 105-yearold home last summer after learning it faced demolition to make way for condos.
He looked at having it lifted and moved, but when that turned out to be impractical, he decided with the developer’s support to dismantle it instead.
Prochazka is buying a central Edmonton property — he won’t yet say where — on which the mansion will be rebuilt with a few modern touches, such as insulation.
“We have had people come by and express various opinions. Once they learn it’s being somehow deconstructed rather than demolished, they’re somewhat relieved.”
Hardwood floors, trim,
“I have a passion for this old stuff. ‘Definitely, we’re going to do this,’ especially since it was a rescue, not a demolition.”
MATHEW BUBENZER
window frames and the wavy glass, light fixtures, wainscotting and other beautiful interior parts have already been taken away.
The oak staircase will eventually follow.
Detailed plans and labels showing where each piece came from will be used to put them back in place.
Prochazka’s particularly pleased with the brick chute, which solved the problem of how to get bricks to the ground quickly without risking breakage.
“You have about 15 to 18 seconds a brick, so if you’re carrying them down from the top to the pallet that completely exceeds the amount of time.”
Heritage planner David Holdsworth is trying to find space in a city yard to store the material until rebuilding starts, probably in summer 2015.
Aside from the Alberta Hotel and the scheduled reconstruction of the Kelly-Ramsay building facade, such projects have rarely been tried in Edmonton, he said.
“It’s better to have it than to lose it. … This way we have something physical and it adds to our urban landscape.”
Mathew Bubenzer, coowner of MB Contracting, said this is the first time he has tackled such a job.
His company has been on-site for five or six weeks, and he expects several more weeks will be needed to finish the work.
“I have a passion for this old stuff. I said, ‘Definitely, we’re going to do this,’ especially since it was a rescue, not a demolition.”
Bubenzer said this approach will probably cost about 50 per cent more than building new.
Removing and cleaning each brick can be tedious, but he thinks the effort is worthwhile.
“What I like about this is it’s being saved instead of just taken to the dump.”