LETHBRIDGE, AB – A two-storey home on 3rd Street South is Lethbridge’s newest Historical Resource.
The Lanz Residence is a concrete block foursquare with a hipped roof and an open front porch with four composite Ionic-Corinthian cement columns.
Ross Kilgour, the City’s Senior Planner, says the Lanz Residence has great heritage value and is significant for its association with Lethbridge’s early residential development.
“From 1907 to the beginning of World War One, Lethbridge enjoyed a period of rapid economic and population growth. This 1909 house was built near the height of the economic boom, before the slowdown caused by World War One, local droughts and the recession in the early 1920s,” says Kilkour.
This home is unusual in that instead of using wood or brick, which were common building materials here at that time, it was constructed from concrete blocks fashioned to look like stone.
City officials says the choice of building material may have been influenced by the strong, dry winds and the prevalent use of timber at that time which made fire a very real threat in Lethbridge.