Calgary novelist Peter Oliva, 51, has spent the last 16 years trying not to knock the character out of his 104 year old red brick Hillhurst home. Having renovated the property from top to bottom, undertaking much of the work himself, he finally concedes that he doesn’t think it’s possible.
“The house and the street have a lot of peculiarities that I really enjoy.” he says fondly, pointing out a squirrel feeder which looks like a tiny table and chairs on one of the 100-year-old poplars outside. “There’s these wonderful imperfections that you just don’t get in modern homes that I wouldn’t dream of ‘fixing.’ The house has been renovated around them.”
He’s right, the solid wood staircase creaks with age and the flaws in the window panes upstairs make light patterns on the walls, just as they should in a true heritage home.
Located just steps from Kensington Road, which has some of the city’s best cafés, the property was built a year before the first Stampede, at the peak of the city’s first building boom.
“I believe it was built for a doctor who delivered the babies in the area and the house next door was the driveway and stable for the carriage horses. After that it became a boarding house for immigrants who I guess came to the west seeking their fortunes,” says Mr. Oliva, who researched the history of the area at the Glenbow Museum.
Having cleaned the windows of businesses on Kensington Road as a boy, Mr. Oliva knew this was where he wanted to live and immediately fell in love with the property’s obvious curb appeal.
“When I bought the house, the first thing I did was finish the basement. I originally thought I might live there and rent the upper part of the house out. But then I met my wife and life changed.”
The basement is now one of Mr. Oliva’s favourite rooms in the house after he and his wife re-renovated it together. “I never did end up living down there. Instead we tore out my renovation and created a small library, TV room, hobby bench and exercise area. I also put in a custom made winemaking sink and we have a laundry room and a bathroom down there too. It’s a pretty good reflection of our interests.”
Mr. Oliva’s interests are as eclectic as the house itself including winemaking, old typewriters and Muay Thai boxing, a hobby he shares with his six-year-old daughter, Serafina. He was also awarded a certificate of merit by Vancouver Police Department in 1993 for apprehending a murder suspect fleeing the scene at a book festival on Granville Island; the certificate hangs on his wall.
He currently has three manuscripts in the works, two of which are with editors, all of which have been written in his airy attic work space.
“I write all my first drafts on an old electric typewriter,” he says in what he calls his writing room, “because it forces me to move forward. I call it the train: It has momentum.”
Next door, in the editing room, a more traditional office set-up with an abundance of windows and skylights allows Mr. Oliva to put the final touches on his work.
His work set-up hasn’t always been so defined however.
“When I first met my wife, she pointed out that I’d successfully managed to turn every room in the house into a work space. There were a lot of desks,” he says with a laugh.“She made some changes in that department.”
Now the house has a distinct flow of work, family and recreation from attic to basement. There’s also a large deck with entertaining area, a yard and a detached double garage added by Mr. Oliva.
Outside, the community has much to offer, being one of the city’s oldest and most established areas. Mr. Oliva says his house’s two large verandas provide the ideal situation from which to enjoy the neighbourhood.
“If I want a conversation I go out on the downstairs veranda with a cup of coffee, if I don’t want a conversation and I just want to observe I go out on the upstairs veranda,” he says.
“People aren’t so transient here, if they move they don’t tend to go very far. Our neighbours remember throwing candy off their balcony for the boarders in this house back in the forties. Their son planted one of the huge trees in our backyard when he was a boy. When people live on a street for a long time, the street retains their stories and a sense of history.”
That sense of history appealed to Mr. Oliva’s “nostalgic nature” but he says having a daughter has changed him. “Children force you to live more in the present and consider the future. I was sad to even list [the house] but it’s time for our family to move on to a new adventure.”
The longevity of historic home owners means that inventory is always in short supply, says architectural historian and Calgary realtor, Halyna Tataryn.
“Currently there are 64 homes for sale in the city which are pre-1920’s but more than half of those are being sold as lot value, sadly the land is often more valuable than the house,” she says. “Heritage homes in this condition are very rare, typically half a dozen a year come to market in Calgary.
“In a difficult market like this, they do hold their value better than newer properties. They have a smaller, more niche market but they typically achieve 40 per cent more than comparable properties with similar floor space. If they’ve been looked after like this one, they make good investments: they’re generally in great locations and are very well built.”
The house is currently listed for sale at $1.295-million.