Description of Historic Place

416 - 21st Street East is a Municipal Heritage Property comprising two city lots in downtown Saskatoon. It features a three-storey, brick-and-terra-cotta-faced office building. The designation pertains to the exterior of the building.

Heritage Value

Heritage value of 416 – 21st Street East resides in its architecture. Built in 1911-1912 by prominent Saskatoon architect W.W. LaChance, who also designed Saskatoon’s original Victoria School and Fire Hall Number 1, it combines simple symmetry and an attractive terra cotta façade in a blend of neo-Classical and Beaux Arts Classical styles rare in Saskatoon. Its temple-like composition includes rusticated, low-relief pillars and capitals with a hint of Classicism, a slender frieze and corbelled cornice. On the topmost storey, decorated pilasters separated by ornate panels support an entablature adorned with female faces suggestive of the caryatids of ancient Greece or Persia, completed by a scrolled parapet and an inscribed pediment. Stone sills emphasize the symmetrical placement of the windows, including those at ground level. Built by he Independent Order of the Odd Fellows, the building follows the Lodge tradition of combining meeting space with commercial property to offset cost, the flow of traffic related to the storefront and to the meeting rooms was accommodated by a double staircase accessible from the street.

Heritage value also lies in the building’s long association with the development of the Saskatoon community and its integral contribution to the 21st Street East streetscape. Built by the Independent Order of the Odd Fellows and used by two of their lodges, with the first Saskatoon Public Library occupying the lower level from 1913 to 1923, the building later became a Union Centre for a decade and later, a fine dining restaurant. In close proximity to the historic railway hotel, The Bessborough, and various pre-World War I structures along 21st Street, this building contributes strongly to one of Saskatoon’s main commercial boulevards.

Source:

City of Saskatoon Bylaw No. 6357.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of 416 – 21st Street East resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those features that reflect the building’s neo-Classical architecture, such as the high-relief carvings of its entablature, its pillars and capitals;
-those features that reflect the building’s Beaux-Arts style, such as its scrolled parapet and other ornate details of its entablature and cornice;
-those features that speak to its association with Saskatoon community organizations, such as the abbreviation “I.O.O.F.” inscribed in its central pediment.