Grand Manor Hotel

Location: Edmonton, AB
Year: 2011
Status: Completed

The Grand Manor Hotel (aka Hagmann Block) is a four-storey commercial block displaying two primary façades. Located in the McCauley neighbourhood of Edmonton, it is an important example of popular architecture of its time. The Grand Manor Hotel accommodated the area’s seasonal and travelling population as Edmonton was growing in the early 20th century. John Hagmann built the hotel in 1913, at the end of Edmonton’s pre-war real estate boom, as an investment property. He lost the building to creditors during World War I. The building stood abandoned for years before Five Oaks Inc. purchased it in 2011 and converted the small individual rooms to low income one bedroom apartments.

The Classical Revival façades were restored with new brick, outsized ground-floor windows matching the original storefronts, pressed metal cornices above the ground floor and at the roofline, and pre-cast neoclassical details. In accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places in Canada, masonry was rehabilitated and repaired by being repointed. When replacement of masonry elements was necessary, it was done in kind with compatible brick, to maintain the façade as close to the original as possible. The project received a City of Edmonton grant for 50% of the exterior work and is now on the city Register of Historic Buildings “A” List. The Grand Manor Hotel remains an important part of the McCauley neighbourhood, a historically significant part of Edmonton’s past which houses Edmonton’s Little Italy, Chinatown and a large concentration of churches. Grand Manor Hotel’s affordable apartments are now home to many Edmonton musicians and artists.