1959 Calgary Stampede Dream Home

Here’s a look at second oldest Calgary Stampede Dream Home (from 1959 – at the time called the Stampede Give-Away Home) and in outward appearances it looks much as it did when new. This lottery has been going on so long it’s become essential to the Stampede experience and tickets move fast. As soon as its announced they get snapped up and there’s a lucky winner every year.

In the early days the houses were more modest in scope compared to some of the hotel-sized offerings presently, but they have always been a showcase of modern features. For the time. They’re well appointed and come completely furnished.

We’ll present you with a list of highlights of things included with the house shortly and it’s pretty interesting. You could call it cutting edge Jetson-esque stuff for the period, but would seem almost blasé by the standards of today.

In addition, homes always include a lot in one of Calgary’s newer neighbourhoods (Charleswood in this case) and the place live-in ready not long after the draw. Houses were and are built right at the Stampede grounds, for display, then later moved to their permanent locations.

The 1959 Stampede Dream Home had a value of $30k, inclusive of furnishings and everything else. While higher than a typical Calgary home at the time, by about $10k, one must take into consideration how well appointed it came. The average home price in the city is now about $500k and this example is actually valued slightly higher (sans anything inside too).

Tickets in 1959 were one dollar each and only sold on the Stampede grounds (vs mostly online today). You have to buy bundles of fifty or more now (starting at $75), but in addition to the Stampede Dream Home, there’s other prizes offered. Vehicles, campers, trips and you name it. The 2022 Dream Home came in at just over a million, but is also paired with a quarter million cash or a condo near the University. So one point three mil, but who’s counting?

While the exterior of this Dream Home is little changed there’s been renovations and changes to the interior over the years, so it’s not exactly as before. It happened to be undergoing another round of work on our visit and out of respect, we didn’t take interior shots. Nothing looks good when redecorating, especially when it’s being lived in at the same time.

All the furnishings, appliances and anything else original to the home are long gone. That’s too bad as it seemed a poster-boy of mid-century design and the height of style at the time. Just browse the brochure and take it in! This period is popular again (it never left for some) and any furnishings you see in the brochure, assuming in decent condition, would be quite valuable now.

The 1959 Dream Home has an attached garage which for the time was quite a luxury and maybe made for some envious neighbours. You can just picture a tail-finned land yacht parked out front. Today, two or three car garages are the usual (often with at least one stall repurposed for miscellaneous storage) but here there’s only room for a single vehicle. Oh, the humanity.

Even a driveway at the time made you look like a big shot, but things we’re simpler then.

Now that we’ve chatted a bit and maybe learned a bit, let’s see what it came with….

Canadian General Electric supplied a console TV, combination Hifi, floor polisher and garberator. Little Timmy’s Hotwheels don’t stand a chance with it!

From Canadian Westinghouse it was the laundry team and vacuum. If we believe ads of the time, housewives always did cleaning or the wash dressed to the nines. Pearls and heels were mandatory. She wouldn’t even break a sweat and the experience pure carefree joy…or so we were to believe.

The fridge, stove and wall oven came from Frigidaire. A lot of other stuff came from Sunbeam and included a steam iron, toaster, coffee maker, waffle maker, mixmaster, egg cooker (you know you’ve hit the big time when you have an egg cooker), hair dryer, shaver, lawnmower, hedge clipper, and bottle warmer. For baby bottles, I guess?

There’s more: electric blankets, shoe polisher (essential at the time), electric massager, electric can opener, electric knife sharpener, electric coffee grinder, electric eye (turned on the lights when dark), electric turbo Brylcreem dispenser (okay, that’s a lie) and illuminated house number. Are we in heaven?

Someone pinch me!

The brochure boasts: “This is an all-electrical home!” Yup, it’s the future and it’s happening today. Note how the structure looks more broad and lower profile in the artist’s rendering in the brochure.

You got beds and bedding, carpet, drapes and anything else you could think of. Just bring your toothbrush and slippers. Looking at old photos shows it also came with a standing ashtray in almost every room. That was a thing too.

The draw for this Dream Home got broadcast on local TV and no doubt everyone who purchased was glued to their set. We’ve dug up the name of the winner (Gladys Bennett) but it appears this person moved out within a few years and since, the home has changed hands a couple more times.

Overall it was a big undertaking by the Stampede and associated charities. Just bringing the home to completion relied on many vendors, suppliers and contractors, all of who donated or steeply discounted their goods or services. It plays out the same today but the dollar value is much higher.

The 1959 Stampede Dream Home looks so nice all lit up in the twilight. This structure foreshadowed where home design was heading and has many stylings of Brady Homes coming that next decade. Team BIGDoer’s place is one year newer but is one of those bland shoe-box with a hip-roof things popular at the time and built by the thousands in Calgary. The home seen here, is open, airy and welcoming, so quite different from the then usual.

The idea for this post came while doing research on an unrelated topic and as often happens it sort of fell into our lap. There we were shuffling though some old newspapers, when we spotted an article about this very home and with that a seed planted. We sat there wondering what happened to it and you know, we just had to act!

Cool story: we contacted the Stampede to see if they knew the location but told us the records were gone. We called around further, chatted with whoever would listen and still got nowhere – no one knew. A solution: let’s go for a walk and find it that way. We knew what the house looked like (assuming unaltered) and over two days we covered about two thirds of the community.

We came up empty and while making plans to walk the rest, a call came out of nowhere and this person knew the address. I guess we had an ally at the Stampede and someone there called on some connections to see what they could find for us. Without connections and networking we’d be nothing. Turns out we got within a block of it at some point. That close…and as you can see, it does look the same! Had we started in the reverse direction, it surely would have been found almost right away.

The very first Stampede Dream Home from 1958 still exists (SW Calgary), but it’s been altered. This post has us wondering, however, if we shouldn’t seek out others, from the 1960s-1970s period to see if any still look as they did when new. That’s an era we love for its often kitschy and over-the-top designs. Do we even have the time?

Thanks goes out to Bob Clovis for sharing the Dream Home brochure and we so enjoyed browsing it.

Know more (new windows): Calgary Stampede Dream Homes.

They’re saying…

“Great stories and great photos. A glimpse into the soul of Alberta…” Norman Weatherly (we go into BC and SK too).

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If you wish more information on what’s seen here, don’t hesitate to: contact us!

Date of Adventure: May, 2022.
Location(s): Calgary, AB.
Article references and thanks: Eduard S, the Calgary Stampede, Bob Clovis and the Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society.

The 1959 Stampede Dream Home (Calgary AB).

It’s the second oldest and little changed on the outside.

The brochure.

$30.000 Stampede Give-away home.