Hamilton House remains unsold

East Kildonan

Hamilton House at 185 Henderson Hwy. is a uniquely storied home that has been up for sale since last spring, and its price has been dropped twice. It has no heritage protections.

The home was where Dr. Thomas Glendenning Hamilton and his wife Lillian hosted seances, at a time in the early 20th century when the spiritualist movement was sweeping the globe. It was a faith-based belief that included the hypothesis that spirits could be contacted by the living. Many famous people attended the Elmwood seances, including Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (the one on our $50 bill).

Incidentally, the books The Spiritualist Prime Minister: Vol. I Mackenzie King and the New Revelation and Vol. II Mackenzie King and His Mediums, both by Anton Wagner, are contenders for the 2024 Manitoba Day award by the Manitoba Association of Archivists. (The award recognizes books utilizing archives to contribute to the understanding of Manitoba’s history)

This spring, Halifax filmmaker Kate Solar, a Hamilton family descendant, came to Winnipeg to make a film involving Hamilton House.

“T.G. and Lillian Hamilton were my great-great-grandparents,” Solar said. “In Hamilton House in the ’20s and ’30s, they took hundreds of photographs of supernatural materializations during seances they held. I am in production on a short documentary film investigating the way that the women in my family have interacted with this complex generational legacy of truth and agency.”

T.G. and Lillian’s eldest child, and only daughter, was Margaret Hamilton, who devoted herself to archiving her parents’ work. Margaret’s daughter Frances is Solar’s grandmother.

“I learned about the Hamiltons and their history from my father, when I was maybe 13,” Solar recalled. “He told me that when his mother – my grandmother – lived in Winnipeg, her bedroom was the old seance room. I was immediately fascinated by the story and began seeking more information about the Hamiltons. Luckily there is lots of information available online from the University of Manitoba”.

Solar was unable to access the house to shoot inside it.

“I was disappointed. (The house) was built for the family and stayed in the family for many decades. It’s really unfortunate that my trip overlapped with this real estate sale, when I know that if I could have come just a year earlier, I would have had no problems entering the house,” Solar said.

“Everyone I’ve told about the history of the Hamiltons has been immediately compelled by it,” Solar continued. “Their story combines so many aspects of the evolution of the 20th century – grief, spiritualism, science, modernism, religion, gender, class, the Spanish flu pandemic, the development of camera technology, personal and institutional practices of archiving – with a peerless collection of deeply striking images.”

“I hope that the house can survive in some way; it’s in rough shape. It’s interesting that the house, with its signage, currently stands as the most clear and recognizable testament to the Hamiltons’ complex and multifaceted influence upon Elmwood and Winnipeg,” Solar added.

“When describing my film to Winnipeggers, they’ve often said things like ‘Oh, you mean Hamilton House!’ If the house is lost, I wonder if some civic knowledge of the Hamiltons will be, as well,” she wondered.

I believe Hamilton House should be safeguarded and made available to all. That such a place survives is very rare; it should be stewarded by the community through community ownership, and developed as an innovative, best-practices museum along with imaginative community space. Its draw would truly be far and wide.

How do you see the future of Hamilton House?