Donna recently sent me this photo of a house on Harwood Street in the West End. She said: “I came across this picture in some old family photos. I live in Calgary and as far as I know, there is no family connection to the building. There is no date on my photo, and I could not find any reference as to when this building was used for a school. I’m not looking for further information, I only wanted to share this photo.”
How intriguing!
Donna had seen a now and then photo that I posted of a house at 1185 Harwood in 1956 and thought it was the same one. And, she’s right it is, but this photo was taken two decades earlier. The house was designed by architects Parr and Fee in 1903 for contractor Alex Morrison. The family lived there until Margaret Morrison’s death in 1933 at 85.
The Lions Gate School for boys opened in September 1935, operated out of the house for two years and then moved to Oak Street. I did find a reference to the school in Jean Barman’s book Growing up British in British Columbia. She writes that the school was small, about 75 students and a third of them boarders. “Lions Gate survived because it provided individual attention as well as an economical, unpretentious compromise for families eschewing the public system but unable to afford the fees or possibly accept the social pretentions of a school like St. Georges.”
In the fall of 1937 the Margaret Nursing and Convalescent Home had opened and was still operating in 1956 when this photo was taken.
Today, a 15-storey high-rise called Lancaster House (1320 Bute) has taken over that corner of Harwood and Bute street, and the only evidence of the house is the stone fence that still remains.
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