Historic Cottage - 129 Ash,
Banchory Lodge, 1910
The Western Canada Fire Assurance Underwriters’ Association published a map in 1915 showing every building in the area of Winnipeg Beach south of Boundary Creek, the area owned by the CPR. It shows several guest houses, some of which also offered meals. These guest houses and small Inns had creative names such as Park-A-While on Park Ave. and Linger-Longer on Grove.
Banchory Lodge has had several names over the years starting as the “No Won Inn”, and at one time being known as the Hockey Lodge, as the owner’s son played hockey and brought many of the team out each summer. Then it was named Bowman’s Cottage for a family who owned it for over 55 years until it was purchased by the current owner’s and renamed Banchory Lodge.
The lodge was built in 1910 by the CP Rail as a 12-bedroom guest house with each rather tiny bedroom boasting an ice box, oil lantern, and a washstand, according to historic ads for it found in the Winnipeg Free Press. You can still see the numbers on the walls over the bedroom doorways for the rooms which were rented to summer to guests who travelled from Winnipeg on the CP Rail trains. With soaring 20 ft ceilings and plenty of original Victorian charm, the current owners Wendy and Murray Peter, who had a fair bit of experience in restoring historic buildings - could not resist the pull of this property. In 2020 they purchased it from the Bowman family and began a complete historic restoration on it.
Here are a few photos of the ongoing restoration.
The Screen Porch
Nothing says summer cottage like a screen porch, the place of choice to gather in the cottages of Winnipeg Beach. Wicker chairs rockers, and a day bed or hammock in the corner have remained as features since the beach community began.
A 1910 screen porch at Winnipeg Beach
The restored screen porch at Banchory Lodge
The Kitchen
The typical cottage kitchen in 1910 would have held a wood burning stove for cooking and heating, and a farm table to work at. By the time the current owners began the restoration of this cottage, those features were gone and a 1950’s kitchen which had seen better days was all that remained. There were a few original features, but they needed some rehab to make them shine.
The kitchen before restoration:
it still had the 1920’s sink.
The kitchen before restoration:
the original plate wall was intact
The kitchen after restoration.
The original 1920’s sink and the plate rack were preserved and cabinets custom made to fit them. Working vintage appliances were installed, and cabinets were painted in a charming 1940’s green tone. The goal was for the restored kitchen components to feel as if they had been there all along. A center island was created to give the feel of a far house table.
The Quirky Butlers Pantry
When doing a historic restoration, you sometimes come across a mystery that you want to solve. One such mystery at 129 Ash was the old butlers pantry off of the kitchen. It had original shelves, and falling apart original cabinets that needed repair, but the mysterious part was that there was a bedroom doorway leading off of the pantry which did not have an actual door, and the pantry door itself which lead off of the kitchen had a large wppden door huge bolt across it inside the pantry the size of which you would normally see on a barn door.
After some research and discussion with those who knew how the guest houses were run, we discovered that the back bedroom off the pantry was likely the cooks bedroom and she would bolt the pantry door closed at night to protect the food from hungry young adults, and unbolt it in the morning when she rose to light the fires and start breakfast. The pantry cabinets and shelves where restored and even the original hardware was rescued by soaking it in a crockpot to remove over 100 years of paint. The restored pantry now serves as a coffee station and space for an extra fridge which serves the needs of our modern society. The heavy door and bolt has been removed to provide access to anyone at anytime of day or night.
The Butlers Pantry before restoration
The Butlers Pantry after restoration
The Lodge Room
The soaring 20 ft ceilings in the main lodge room are now highlighted with art and fun historic beach decor. Sadly the original fireplace could not be saved for safety reasons so a new fireplace will be added eventually. The dining room is very large having once accommodated many paying guests and a table has been added that opens up to seat 16. A relaxed historic, beach house feel is present in the furnishings and decor throughout the lodge. In the main lodge room, a historic 1915 gramophone with a crank handle still plays 78 RPM records on Saturday nights.
The Bedrooms
The bedrooms in the lodge are yet to be restored, and you can see the open stud design that was the standard in all the cottages at the turn of the century. The walls in the bedrooms only go up 8 feet so there is not a lot of privacy in these old cottages. The windows in some of the bedrooms open with ropes that work on pulleys attached to the ceiling. The original 12 bedrooms in the lodge have been reduced to 7 bedrooms, a den, laundry room, and two bathrooms to meet the needs of our modern lifestyle. Originally the lodge had no electricity and only the well for water. The toilet was an outhouse at the back of the property. My… how times have changed!
The Name - Banchory Lodge
Finally, you may be curious about how the cottage got it’s current name “Banchory Lodge”. Well, there is quite a unique story behind the name. The current owner Wendy Peter, is decended from an irish family Hugh and Eileen Mailey who back in the 1920’s fished a sign out of lake Winnipeg that said “Banchory Lodge” They hung it on the family cottage, and many years of happy memories were had there, but the cottage was sold in the 1980’s. So when Wendy bought this cottage she not only gave it back the family cottage name, she researched where the name came from and discovered to her astonishment that it came off of a gatehouse to a lodge in the town of Banchory Scotland called of course “Banchory Lodge”. Discussions with the historic society in Banchory Scotland have confirmed that the sign came of of one of the old lodge gates, but it is unknown how it ended up washed up on the shore of lake Winnipeg in the 1920’s. Strange but true, and now a whole new generation is making memories at Banchory Lodge 2.0
Here is a the first Banchory Lodge overflowing with weekend guests. .
