Home Sweet Heritage Home - Anderson, Alexander Victor (Apartments)



	Anderson, Alexander Victor (Apartments) 804 - 18th Avenue SW Built: 1912-1913 1863-1920 Alexander Victor Anderson, known to his friends as "Vic", was born in Pointe Levis, Quebec in 1863, one of seven children. He and his family moved to Alberta in 1882 when his father secured a position as a crown timber agent in Edmonton. "Vic" moved to Calgary around 1892 and married an American woman from Rockford, Illinois who had been in the city since 1885. She had one son from a previous marriage. From 1892 until 1898 Anderson operated a business on Atlantic Avenue (9^th) where he sold "implements and buggies." In 1893 city alderman, Wesley Orr, described Anderson as "a very steady, quiet businessman who evidently understands his business." Anderson left the business in 1898 and took up farming in the Calgary area, returning to the city in 1901. He began buying property and in 1902 built a brick home on Fourth Avenue West, next door to Peter Prince, Manager of the Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Company. After "Vic’s" wife died in 1908, he made plans to build a hotel for bachelors on his 18^th Avenue property. Designed by Roscoe B. Whitten the $150,000 five-storey building opened as a luxury apartment block in 1913. The wealthy widower lived in and managed the Anderson Apartments until his death in 1920 at age fifty-seven. The Anderson family retained ownership of the apartment block until 1977. The Anderson Apartments were the setting for singer Jan Arden’s "Insensitive" video.
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