Heritage house wracked by fire

Point Douglas residents are vowing to find a way to save Barber House after the historic home was heavily damaged by fire early Monday morning.

"The goal is still going to be to bring that building back to life in a historically acceptable way," Point Douglas resident and community activist Sel Burrows said of the long-vacant two-storey home at 99 Euclid Ave., which is believed to be the oldest frame house in Winnipeg.

"Right now we're in a bit of a state of shock," Burrows said of the members of Sisters Initiating Steps Towards a Renewed Society (SISTARS), a community group that obtained possession of the house and surrounding property just last week from the city.

The gutted building in the aftermath.
( WAYNE.GLOWACKI@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

He said SISTARS plans to build a new $1.3-million community daycare centre on the Barber House property and to redevelop the house into a drop-in centre for area seniors. He added the two buildings will be physically connected to one another.

"I spoke to most of the board members this morning (Monday) and I don't think there's a question in anybody's mind that it is salvageable," he said. "It has to be salvaged. It's just too important historically."

A fire department spokesman said Monday the cause of the fire was still under investigation and a damage estimate had not yet been determined.

However, a fire investigator at the scene Monday morning said: "It looks like the building was accessed and possibly set on fire."

Darren Bayluk, an investigator with the city's arson strike force, said officers in a passing police cruiser spotted the blaze at about 5:20 a.m. and notified the fire department.

"It was well involved at that point."

No neighbouring buildings were damaged and no one was injured.

Bayluk said the attic, roof and second floor of the house were destroyed. However, "the outside walls are solid timber and the outside structure looks like it's still fairly well intact."

Burrows said as soon as he and some other area residents heard about the fire, they raced over to the scene.

"When we got there and we saw the flames billowing we thought, 'Oh my God!' "

But their spirits were lifted when a senior fire department official came over a little later and told them it looked like the shell of the building could be salvaged.

Burrows said a five-metre-high, chain-link fence was erected around the house after another fire in 1993. But last week, the construction company that was to start work today on the daycare centre removed a section of the chain-link fence and replaced it with a two-metre-high construction fence that will run all around the property.

He said they'll now have to wait for the go-ahead from police before the daycare-centre project can get underway. And the SISTARS board was expected to decide Monday night whether to hire a structural engineer to inspect Barber House and determine if it's still structurally sound.

Burrows said the money for the daycare centre project has already been raised. The group also has "tentatively" raised about $700,000 for the Barber House redevelopment, including a sizeable grant from the federal government. But they still need to raise another $200,000 to $300,000 of "local money" before that project can proceed, he said, and talks are underway with the provincial government.

Adrian Stoness, who has lived in the Point Douglas area since 1992 and is well-versed in the history of Barber House, also hopes the building can be saved.

"It has been a bit of an eyesore for a long time... but it would be a shame to see it go because it's such an icon in the neighbourhood," Stoness said after arriving on his bike early Monday morning to check out the damage.

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Barber House, circa 1869

A House With a History

Here is a quick glance at some of the history behind Barber House, which is believed to be the oldest frame house in Winnipeg.

The house was apparently built between 1862 and 1867 by 19th-century journalist and businessman Edmund Lorenzo Barber, a Connecticut Yankee who came to the Red River Settlement via St. Paul, Minn. and opened a store in present-day North Point Douglas in 1861.

Barber House, 1959

A rare surviving example of Red River frame construction, based on the French "post on sill" technique. End lap joints between squared oak logs secured a large base -- the sill -- on which vertical logs made the frame.

Horizontal logs between the posts were held solid with mortise and tenon joints. Clay and straw filled the spaces and plaster usually covered the exterior.

E. L. Barber died in 1909. In all, his family and descendants lived in the house for about 110 years.

Barber's great-niece, Tracy Semmer, said she remembers hearing stories of great get-togethers being held in the lush front yard of the home. Her uncle, John Graham, sold the property to the city in 1974 and it was designated a city and provincial heritage site.

The house has been boarded up for many years after being heavily damaged by several previous fires -- some accidental and some deliberately set. Area residents said the last was in 1993.

Attempts by a local community group -- Sisters Initiating Steps Towards a Renewed Society (SISTARS) -- to redevelop the property were hampered in 2006 by the discovery of high amounts of lead in soil on the property.