City duo bring new life to old houses

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on July 20, 2024.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman House rescuers Anita Rigaux and Kent Andersson stand at the new entrance after restoring the house originally built in 1912 on the city's northside.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Two Lethbridge residents are restoring history and neighbourhoods one house at a time as they believe preserving memories is important for the community and the houses deserve a second chance.

One of the many houses Anita Rigaux and Kent Andersson have rescued and restored was built in 1912. It is located on the northside and was originally owned by one of the city’s first grocers, Alex Johnston who co-owned the North Ward Grocery which opened in 1908 along 13 Street North.

Andersson explained how important it is for him to preserve history in any way he can. Six years ago he had the opportunity to join Rigaux to rescue houses and preserve not only their history, but also their presence in their neighbourhood and the history within them.

“If you don’t have a history, you don’t have a future. So this has been my thing for decades, to preserve the history and to show that to this generation and to coming generations,” said Andersson.

He said that before rescuing houses one of the ways he preserved history was by teaching preservation and one thing he always said was that he worked in a 500-year perspective, meaning what we do will last.

“Same things with these houses, we do everything with the idea that it will last in every little detail,” said Andersson.

Rigaux, who has been rescuing and restoring houses for 18 years, added that she has always been interested in making ugly things pretty once again and houses give her that opportunity.

“I’ve loved the style of older houses for a long time, they had much more interesting architecture, they usually have taller ceilings, they’re more interesting to look at,” said Rigaux.

She added one thing about older houses is that they are located in older neighbourhoods, where their houses are unique – they are not “cookie cutter houses.”

Regaux added that unfortunately some older houses get left behind, abandoned, forgotten and trashed but even then they deserve a second chance.

“I don’t like the waste when people just come in and bulldoze everything down and they take away the things that were interesting,” said Regaux.

She said bringing long-forgotten houses back to life is personally rewarding for her, which is why she continues to do it.

“It feels amazing to take something that’s disgusting and bring it back back to where someone can love it again. There’s no reason to get rid of most of them.”

She said she has rescued and restored more than 25 houses and Andersson has brought his history-preserving perspective, which has made the process that much more meaningful.

“Every old object has a story, as you peel back layers of houses you get to see the renovations from previous generations, what was important to them,” said Rigaux.

She shared an anecdote from a previous house restoration where she found newspapers under the floorboards that were from when Poland was invaded by Nazis and the Second World War had officially started.

Rigaux said moments like that make the restorations more meaningful as they discover pieces of the home’s history and imagine how previous owners lived.

“For this house specifically, it was the first time we got the entire story from the generation before – who bought it from who, and how he had been interacting with the house and the owners,” said Regaux.

She said the house was in terrible condition but it had “beautiful bones.” They had been working on a different house nearby and they drove by it a few times and one day while going for a walk they saw the owner in the back alley who said he was wanting to sell as his tenants have moved out.

Rigaux said they did not hear from the owner for a few months and one day they did and were thrilled to be able to rescue the house, which at that point was condemned and slated for demolition.

“We restored it from the basement to the roof. The roof was the first thing we did because it had a massive hole in it. It took us six months to do it,” said Rigaux.

Andersson explained that because the house was condemned the city had to get involved in the process and when they saw the house after it was restored they were very impressed.

“This house is such a success story for us. To see a house being condemned, not suitable for human habitation and then see it turned into something like this, is just so positive,” said Andersson.

Seeing the house slowly deteriorate was something that was very hard to the original owners’ grandson Lorne Z, who shared how emotional it was to see the house brought back to life, especially with many of the original features, which brought so many memories.

“This house was owned and built by my grandparents. I unfortunately never met my grandfather as he passed away before I was born, but my nana (grandmother) stayed in this house and I spent a lot of time here with her up to when they sold the house in 1979 when I was 11 years old,” said Lorne.

He said he kept driving by the house and witnessed the deterioration for the last 20 years and he kept preparing himself for the day he would no longer be able to see it either because it was demolished, burned down or any other reason.

“But one day I drove by and realized the hole in the roof was gone as there was a new roof and I saw Anita painting the side of the house, and I stood outside on the street checking things out and then we got talking and I told them my grandparents used to own the house and they were generous enough to let us in,” said Lorne.

While holding back tears, he said it was emotional to walk in the house for the first time after so many years and to see the state it was in, but it was even more emotional when he saw it restored and seeing his father’s reaction when he saw it because he spent lots of time in the house courting Lorne’s mother.

“I can’t tell you how many times I have said thank you to them for doing this, it is so special and so emotional to see it restored and I cant believe how fast it was done and how many things were preserved,” said Lorne.

He said the house is not really that different at all, except for the fact the kitchen is now where the dining room was and vice versa, but everything else feels like it is how he remembered it.

Rigaux said the reason behind the switch is based on how modern people live compared to how people live before, as that has changed significantly. She said people used to have large families and large dining rooms and the person making the turkey dinner had to use unique and unusual techniques to cook in the stove in the corner and have a tabletop to knit the dough on, or just a tiny cabinet and a single sink on the wall and they were not really thinking about the comfort of the cook.

“In this day and age you want a nice, big kitchen and your kids are probably going to sit and eat on an island as you rush them a breakfast, send them out the door. You go to work and all these other things,” said Rigaux.

“We don’t have time to monkey around with wandering all over the house to do the cooking and all these things, so we try to bring a house into the how modern people would live so you’re very comfortable but in a house that still has its old style and its old feel.”