Description of Historic Place

1862 Retallack Street is a Municipal Heritage Property located on Lot 17 of Block 315 in the Cathedral Area neighbourhood within the City of Regina. The property features a two-and-one-quarter storey house, known as the Woods Residence, which was built in 1908. The house is constructed of rusticated concrete blocks.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of 1862 Retallack Street resides in its status as one of the oldest single-family dwellings in the Cathedral Area neighbourhood. The Cathedral Area, or “West End” as it was originally known, was laid out as part of the initial townsite survey of Regina. When the McCallum-Hill land development company was formed in Regina in 1903, the firm purchased a large tract of land in this area. The area’s convenient location west of the downtown core appealed particularly to working and middle-class families.

The heritage value of the property also resides in it being an excellent example of a relatively large tradesman’s family home from Regina’s early period of residential development. Constructed in 1908 by James Andrew Woods, a Regina carpenter and building contractor, Woods and his family lived at this residence for about two years. The McCallum-Hill Company subsequently purchased the building as a rental property and it served, through a succession of owners, as a rental property for working class or tradesman's families for several decades.

The property's heritage value also resides in it being one of the best examples of rusticated concrete block construction still surviving in Regina. The rusticated concrete, or cement, blocks were made by a local company. While concrete blocks were not widely used in residential construction in Regina, the Woods Residence is one of the earliest and best known examples. Several cement block companies were operating in Regina shortly after Saskatchewan became a province in 1905 but for unknown reasons, this type of construction did not become popular in residential construction in Regina.

Source:

City of Regina Bylaw No.8165-HR-B86.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Woods Residence lies in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements which reflect the status of the property as one of the oldest single-family dwellings in the Cathedral Area neighbourhood, such as its location on its original site;
-those elements which speak to the rare application of locally-fabricated rusticated concrete blocks in residential construction, such as the exterior concrete block walls.