House sitting but still on the move

By all accounts, it looks pretty good for being more than 120 years old.

Chevigny House is the two-storey log dwelling that sits now on River Lot 24, a far cry from its original site near Old Coal Mine Road north of the city and just east of Highway 2. It was moved three years ago but it still has a big step ahead of it, one that local planners hope will land it permanently into our collective psyche as a fixture in a future French-Canadian farm.

"It's a great building," stated Ann Ramsden, the director of heritage at the Musée Héritage Museum, the organization that acts as the trustee of the city's historic buildings, including the Little White Schoolhouse, the two grain elevators and the small cluster of buildings now on the adjacent river lot. "It's got lots of character and it's got lots of integrity."

It also has an important place in history. Ramsden said that it has a personal level of significance because it stayed in the same family since it was built. There's much more to the seemingly unkempt structure, with its boarded windows, than meets the eye.

The past

Chevigny House is one of the oldest surviving solid log-framed settlers' houses in the whole of the province, a rare resource to all who know how tough it is to find any house older than a century and still upright. It's only slightly younger than St. Albert itself and, despite appearances, still in unbelievably good and original condition.

It is also a fine representation of how the early pioneers — in this case, a pair of French Canadian settlers — established themselves in the community.

It isn't known exactly when it was built, but Québécois brothers David and Louis Chevigny were finished by 1890 at the latest.

"The building could have been built in Québec. They built it in exactly the same style architecturally and in terms of technique. It's a very important example of an early settlement home by French-Canadians here in Alberta," Ramsden noted.

They made the house in the style that they were familiar with, making sure to square off the hand-hewn solid logs. The structure even has dual brick chimneys and dormer windows.

Together, they raised a total of 14 children in the homestead, and later it became a rest house (well known as the Chevigny Stopping Point) for travellers on their way north.

In the 1950s, it was converted into a barn, most of its inner partitions removed to accommodate this transition.

"St. Albert is the oldest non-fortified community in Alberta, yet we have very little built heritage to show for it. That makes it very significant," Ramsden said.

The present

Chevigny House was moved from its first site in early 2008, an event that took years of planning and co-ordination and with many eyes to what purpose it would serve.

It currently rests in the shadows of St. Albert's two grain elevators, in a state that looks worse than should be considered. Vandals had their way with it some years ago, but the spray paint on the inside should be an easy fix compared to the other issues.

"It needs a fair amount of work on it," Ramsden pointed out, "both in terms of some new logs and some stabilization. The graffiti is cosmetic but we're more concerned with the rotten logs."

Much like the famed red barn of the Hole family, this house served as a focal point. Just last weekend, in fact, many members of the Chevigny clan held a family reunion on the site, getting their own chances to look into the past and relive many fond memories.

The future

There is no final estimate on what the project might cost because the extent of the work is still being determined.

Ramsden qualified that with a status update.

"At the moment, there are some motions for the committee in whole of council to put some money for the project in 2012, 2013 and 2014. It's going to be a French-Canadian farm."

That farm refers to a cultural centre near the grain elevator site. The house now sits on River Lot 24. The intent is to move it a short distance to River Lot 23, where it will join up with other significant structures, like the Brosseau Granary and the Cunningham and Hogan houses, on a mock farmstead landscaped to look like it would have back in the 1880s. There, the museum and its heritage sites programmers will offer educational and interpretive tours for young and old alike.

Negotiations are ongoing to acquire that land from its current owners. River Lot 23 was originally used as the site of the Hudson's Bay Company outpost between 1866 and 1875. In 1913, Edmond Brosseau submitted a plan of subdivision that sought to establish the centre of the growing town of St. Albert around the site and its hub of activities, the 1906 Alberta Grain Company grain elevator.

That plot of land is in itself a rare example of a surviving form of land subdivision that is characteristic of many missionary and early pioneer settlements. The river lot system dates to before both the sale of Rupert's Land to the Dominion of Canada and when Alberta adopted the standard rectangular township plan that is so familiar today.

Arts and Heritage St. Albert executive director Paul Moulton added that alternative sources of funding are being worked out as well.

"We have set up a fundraising group called the Friends of Chevigny House," he said.

That group is headed by local accountant and former Arts and Heritage trustee Lionel Bergevin. He was on the board when the building was donated and he recalled the sense of relief and the thrill upon hearing the news.

"There were a number of communities — I think Beaumont was interested — because it has the classical French-Canadian architecture," Bergevin said.

"The restoration is quite costly. Restoring a building can be more expensive than building it from scratch."

The Chevigny family still have the original furniture from the house as well. Their intent is to donate those items when the time finally comes that the doors are ready to open to the public.

"It is a slow process but the advantage is that it gives us a little time to think out steps. There's a lot of preparation work in terms of studies and determining the best course of restoration," Ramsden said.

Moulton can wait.

"If you look at the functional plan in the bigger context of what's there, and the history of the river lots — and we all know there's something unique in that in our community — then the Chevigny House really becomes pivotal to anchor the European farm. It's a linchpin in my estimation."