A home with a pedigree

Crescentwood

When Amanda and her husband purchased their Crescentwood home in 2018, they knew they were taking on a project — but they never imagined they’d be uncovering pieces of local history along the way.

Over the past six years, the couple and their five children have lovingly restored the home, peeling back layers of past renovations to reveal original features and intriguing artifacts, many linked to the home’s earliest known resident, C.W.U. Chivers.

Amanda turned to Google and the Manitoba Historical Society’s Memorable Manitobans pages to learn more about the home’s past and its original owner. Historical records confirm Cyril William Upton Chivers was a well-known Winnipeg businessman and park commissioner in the early 1900s, with connections to the Assiniboine Park Pavilion and local lumber mills. According to the MHS, he was born in England in 1879 and came to Winnipeg at the age of 21 to work with the engineering department of the Canadian Pacific Railway before moving on to work as an architect in 1906.

Chivers joined and served with the First Canadian Mounted Rifles during the First World War and rose to the rank of Brigade Major with the Ninth Canadian Infantry Brigade. After the war he founded the architectural partnership of Northwood and Chivers, which designed many historic homes and buildings which still stand today. He married Frances Simpson in 1907, and they had three children. Chivers died in 1969.

The Chivers family name appeared time and again throughout his former home. In one major discovery, Amanda and her family uncovered a cement cornerstone etched with “Chivers” and “1910” surfaced during a backyard renovation.

“Every time we found something — a telegraph card, an old postcard, a fuse box from 1922 — it just made us want to learn more,” Amanda said. “Cyril’s architecture and (the) garden are like pieces of the personality of this house.”

Curious about your own home’s history? Resources such as www.mhs.mb.ca and local archives are a great place to start.

“Every home has a story,” Amanda adds. “It’s been a privilege to learn ours — and to be part of it.”