Description of Historic Place

The Silver Heights Gates in Winnipeg is a stone and concrete structure erected in 1950-51 at the main entrance to a St. James-area residential neighbourhood. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to the structure on its footprint.

Heritage Value

The Silver Heights Gates, a sleek modernistic landmark of concrete, limestone and wrought iron, announces a prestigious post-1945 residential subdivision located on land with roots integral to the development of west Winnipeg. The structure is the largest of a group of similarly designed markers that line the main entrance to an area containing several hundred single-family homes on quiet tree-lined loops and crescents between two busy regional streets. The pairing of concrete and multi-coloured limestone recalls the popularity of the combination at the time, especially as seen in buildings constructed and/or designed by the subdivision's developer, F.R. Lount, and his architect-son, W.D. Lount. Also symbolic are the gate's stylized metal versions of the prairie crocus, Manitoba's official flower. The subdivision occupies and, through its street names, memorializes the storied landholding of Silver Heights, developed in the latter 1850s by John Rowand Jr. of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), later used as Manitoba's first Government House, then acquired by Donald A. Smith, a major figure in institutions critical to the province's early growth, including the HBC, Canadian Pacific Railway, Bank of Montreal and federal Parliament.

Source: City of Winnipeg Committee on Planning and Community Services Meeting Minutes, May 23, 1995

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the site character of the Silver Heights Gates include:
- the structure's placement, flanking and spanning the sidewalk, at the northwest corner of Mount Royal Road and Traill Avenue in Silver Heights, the most northerly of a series of markers extending north along Mount Royal from Portage Avenue

Key elements that define the character of the gate's modern styling include:
- the clean lines and asymmetrical massing, with concrete on all horizontal surfaces and handsome multi-coloured local limestone set in a random rubble pattern on the remainder of the structure
- the integrated composition incorporating a low bench, with a small wrought-iron crocus forming the back of the seat, ending in a tall lozenge-shaped pillar, 4.57 metres high, with stylized wrought-iron lettering reading 'SILVER HEIGHTS' and painted to contrast with the stone; and a concrete overhang projecting out from the pillar's mid-section and over the sidewalk to connect to a lower, planter-like structure on the boulevard, with striking wrought-iron work in the shape of a crocus joining the plinth to the canopy
- the details, including the stone pattern with short sections of small stones, set vertically, and randomly inserted amongst the larger stones, etc.