Osborne Village icon has left its mark

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This article was published 25/06/2017 (3236 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CNN is putting an Osborne Village development on a much bigger radar screen than one would expect.

Ashleigh Banfield, a Winnipeg-born CNN analyst and former NBC war correspondent, is a descendant of a former owner of the Dennistoun House at 166 Roslyn Rd.

After 109 years, Dennistoun House is expected to be demolished by the end of the month to make way for a seven-storey, 77-unit condo tower.

Once designated a municipal historic site, the house was removed from the list in 2009. Banfield, a descendant of Robert Maxwell Dennistoun, a Winnipeg lawyer and judge in the early 20th century, believe the house and the family who lived there have left their mark.

“I think my great-grandfather would be proud the Dennistoun name and character has lived on,” said 

Other descendants of Dennistoun, who drafted the province’s first Workmen’s Compensation Act, include Marnie McBean, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing, Breaking Bad executive producer Michelle Maclaren, and Hollywood talent agency executive Doug Maclaren.

In February, Banfield returned to Winnipeg, where her mother and brother live, to shoot a short documentary on her family’s history. She sifted through the Manitoba Archives to find her great-grandfather’s diaries, files and photos of the house from more than a century ago.

In the photos, Banfield saw women standing in the front yard wearing bonnets and corsets. Her great-grandparents moved out of the J.D. Atchison-designed house in 1923, long before Banfield’s mother was born.

“It was astounding to just see the grandeur,” she said.

But when she went to the house, she said it was a shadow of its former self.

“It’s fallen in such ill repair,” Banfield said. “It’s been weathered and aged without any kind of care or attention, which old homes like that require, and it shows.”

Many community members opposed the development and fought for the Dennistoun House’s preservation. In 2010, appeals made by Osborne Village residents reached the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench but failed. Sunstone Resort Communities was given the go-ahead by city council in October 2015.

“I can’t thank those people enough who made the effort. It’s sad that it will be in vain, but I think it speaks to the strong character of Winnipeg values that they honour and appreciate their history even when it’s not their own personal history,” Banfield said.

Suzanne Banfield Lount, Banfield’s mother, learned the development was set to begin when she read about it in the Free Press.

“There goes grandfather’s house. (It’s) finally going on the chopping block,” she thought.

The news spurred memories of her family and a bygone era.

“I’m sad to see it go,” she said. “I think it’s sad for Winnipeg to lose historical houses. However, it is what it is.”

In 1910, her mother was born in the house. After her grandfather and uncles Jim and Jack Dennistoun went overseas to fight in the First World War, only two returned home to Roslyn Rd. Jack was shot down over France and his plane burst into flames.

Robert Dennistoun spoke at the dedication of the Smiling Soldier war memorial, which is on the grounds of the legislature, still shaken by his experience in the war and the loss of his son, whose name is engraved on the monument along with more than 1,600 other Manitobans who died in the war.

“My grandfather was quite a remarkable man,” Banfield Lount said.

A former realtor, Banfield Lount understands the reality of houses being demolished so other buildings can go up, but that doesn’t make saying goodbye to her grandfather’s house much easier.

“I drive by it often, and I look at it. I think of my grandfather, a man of few words,” she said. “And I’m sorry that lovely house won’t be around anymore.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca