Alexander Rutherford was still Premier when he contracted the design for an official residence for Alberta?s Premiers. As historian Lisa Mort-Putland explains, Rutherford instructed the architect to design something grand:

The house was designed primarily for entertaining. It?s the most beautiful red brick Jacobethan-style home. Yet it?s very, very dark. And when you enter through the front doors, most people are quite stunned because they can?t really see the home. And once your eyes adjust, you have this wonderfully grand foyer with grand central staircase, and the beautiful library and parlour and dining room. And the architect and civil engineer designed it in that manner so that once your eyes adjusted to the dark oak paneling, you?d be terribly impressed. And the rooms were designed to hold large numbers of people and to be very formal. And the dining room, for example, is the largest room in the house and was the most elegant of rooms.

Rutherford House was designed with the very best construction techniques of the day. The foundation, which was poured in 1909, is particularly thick.

Even today, whenever we need to do a little maintenance, the construction crews cringe at having to drill through our foundation because it?s probably three times thicker than a normal basement. The boiler system, which we still use at Rutherford House, was then laid into the basement, and the house was built around it. The Jacobethan style gave it beautiful red brick and limestone cornerstones and mouldings. It has stained glass windows.

But probably the most exciting thing for our restoration crews was the fact that Rutherford House was built like a commercial building. For example, they built all of the electrical wiring in 1909 in conduit. They plumbed with modern plumbing and sewage techniques. It was built with a telephone, central heating. All of those things were very exciting for the day and unusual.

Between the time the house was started in 1909 and it was finished in 1911, Rutherford had resigned as Premier. This would no longer be the official residence of Alberta?s Premiers. And Rutherford paid the 25 000 dollar construction bill out of his own pocket. But that left no money to furnish the house.

On the Heritage Trail, I?m Cheryl Croucher.