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Nov 21, 2024
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When Jason Hattie gets out of bed every morning, his feet hit floorboards that are more than a century old.
“I still have lots of moments where I’ll be standing somewhere and I’ll just look around and be like ‘Holy crap,’ and get those same goosebumps that I had when I first saw the place,” said the 37-year-old owner and caretaker of Lawrence House, one of Saskatchewan’s hidden historical gems.
He’s spent the better part of a decade painstakingly restoring the home, and is now opening the doors to allow the public a glimpse into the past.
“One of my favourite parts about living out here is just showing it to people and having people over. I feel like a little museum operator,” he said.
The home was originally built in Hanley in 1906. It became known as the Lawrence House after Thomas Lawrence became the owner in 1909. His family lived in the home for 66 years before it was sold and moved in 1975. (Submitted)
Lawrence House was originally built in Hanley in 1906 by Louis Amunds. The 12-room house, then the largest in Hanley, towered over Garfield Street.
The home was unlike anything people in the area had ever seen, and it attracted a lot of attention from the moment construction began.
“It wasn’t (an) Eaton’s house or a catalogue house. It was a custom design.” said Hattie.
It’s believed Amunds designed the house to mimic French colonial-style architecture he saw while travelling in the United States, likely in the New Orleans area.
The seven precision carpenters hired to construct the house used the finest materials available to create the masterpiece.
Decorative woodwork features prominently around the home, varnished and polished to a shine. The ceilings on the main floor are covered by tin tiles painted white, all featuring unique and intricate designs.
More than $1,000 was spent to construct the elaborate fireplace, which today would be equivalent to over $25,000.
The fireplace in Lawrence House is original to the home. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
Opulence and comfort were priorities in the construction of this home, and innovative methods were used to ensure it would be comfortable, even during cold Saskatchewan winters.
“There’s no horse hair or newspaper or sawdust or that kind of insulation. It’s literally a triple-wall design. The cold or the heat has to transfer through one air pocket, then through another wall to the next air pocket, and then through another wall,” said Hattie, adding that the insulation is far better than one would expect from a century-old house.
Thomas Lawrence purchased Lawrence House in 1909, three years after its construction. His family would remain in the home in Hanley until 1975 when it was sold and moved to a piece of land near Saskatoon. (Submitted)
In the summer of 1909 Amunds left Hanley and sold the home to Thomas Lawrence.
Lawrence, a well-respected man in the area, owned Hanley’s first general store and upwards of 60 pieces of land within the town. From 1909 on, the home was known as Lawrence House.
Three generations of the Lawrence family lived in the home until 1975, when it was purchased by Edward Boehmer. He moved the house to an acreage six kilometres east of Saskatoon.
On Nov. 14, 1975 Lawrence House was lifted from its foundation, placed on the bed of a flat-deck truck, and taken on a nerve-wracking 70-km journey.
In 1975 Lawrence House was moved by truck from Hanley to a piece of land six kilometres east of Saskatoon. (Submitted)
Boehmer updated the home, changing the exterior paint from red to green and adding electricity and plumbing. In true ’70s fashion, shag carpet was added to nearly every room.
He lived in the house until his death in 1993, and his parents John and Edith Boehmer then assumed ownership.
“Edith Boehmer, who was the last person who lived in here before I bought it, was in her mid-90s, and I think just stayed to the main floor for the most part, unless her family was over,” said Hattie.
Edith moved out of the home in late 2015, and it sat empty for six months before the Boehmer family decided to put Lawrence House back on the market.
Edward Boehmer purchased Lawrence House in 1975 and lived there until his death in 1993. (Submitted)
Hattie first learned about the home while scrolling on Facebook in May of 2016.
“I saw an early listing of this house before it was on the market. It was an acquaintance of mine that was a real estate agent gushing over how crazy the house was and that it would be going up for sale soon, and … the wheels just started turning,” recalled Hattie.
He showed the listing to his mother, Debbie Hattie, who was immediately intrigued.
“She was like, ‘Oh, well we have to go see it!'” said Hattie.
At their first viewing, the house seemed to be in a state of disrepair, but Hattie’s parents noted that the foundation and roof appeared to be in good shape.
“My mom’s as crazy as I am, so I think once she saw that there was hope, my dad was just like, ‘Oh no, there’s no stopping this train now,'” laughed Hattie.
Hattie and his parents put an offer on the house that day.
“We weren’t the highest offer, but I was told that we were the only offer that had any intention of living in it and fixing it up,” he said. “I think that hit some heartstrings with the Boehmer family, so we (were) offered the chance to buy it after that.”
Hattie began the restoration of Lawrence House almost immediately after assuming ownership. He had next to no construction experience, so he relied heavily on the help of family and friends in the early days of the project.
Much of the work required to rehabilitate the house was grueling. Hattie said he spent the entire first summer scraping the exterior by hand, using a barbecue scraper to ensure each two-inch board was completely free of its old paint. He said the countless hours spent scraping were the worst part of the entire restoration.
His intent was to salvage as many original elements of the home as possible, but there have been instances where certain items were beyond repair. In these cases, he said he scours local stores and the Internet for materials that will help the space feel authentic.
Jason Hattie, the owner of Lawrence House, stands next to an original fireplace in the home, built in 1906. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
While Hattie said he loves living in such an extraordinary home, he admitted that maintaining a 118-year-old building comes with unique challenges.
“Every couple of months you get some little crazy disaster that you never thought you would have to deal with, where you’re like, ‘I don’t know how to fix this!’ But when that happens too, it’s also thrilling when you figure it out,” he said.
Hattie said he has purposely left a few imperfections around the home, which he believes add character and help keep the story of the home alive.
“You can kind of see the soot around the heating vent there, because they would have originally had a coal furnace,” he said, pointing out an area of wallpaper discoloured by decades of smoke floating through the air shafts.
Hattie has heard from many people who remember the home from its days in Hanley. Last summer he connected with members of the Lawrence family who believed for years that their ancestor’s home no longer existed.
“They thought it had burned down. They thought it was gone, which was pretty amazing,” he recalled.
Four members of the family came for a tour of the home and he spoke with 94-year-old Norman Lawrence, the great-grandson of Thomas Lawrence.
“He was just thrilled on the phone that the house was still there and that his granddaughters were in there seeing the place,” Hattie said.
Video tour: Walk through Lawrence House’s main floor
Now that the restoration is mostly complete, Hattie has opened the house for a variety of event rentals. He’s hosted weddings, dinner parties, and overnight stays at the home, and has now partnered with Victoria Montgomery Design to offer customized pop-up weddings for smaller groups.
“That was always kind of the idea behind it — to get it to a point where I could share it with other people and let them also experience being in the house,” he said. “I’ll get the odd person even just stopping by that sees it through the bushes and (is) curious and brave enough to knock on the door.”
Editor’s note: a previous version of this story included a photo that incorrectly identified Edward Boehmer.