Formerly located on Anderson Avenue in Winnipeg, a 2½-storey brick and stone house, measuring 37 feet by 37 feet by 35 feet, was designed by local architect John Hamilton Gordon Russell and built between 1900 and 1901 by the construction firm of Pattinson and Eilbeck for businessman Frederick John Charles “Fred” Cox and his family at a cost of about $5,000. The house featured a wide glazed verandah and double-hung sash windows, a beveled-glass front door opening into an oak-arched hall, a dining room with a brass-bound light fixture, and a mahogany fireplace with overmantle, mirror, and tiled hearth. The third floor contained a billiard room and the basement held a wine cellar.
The house was named “The Grange” for the Cox family’s ancestral home in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. The grounds, designed in an English garden style, had a circular gravel driveway and featured numerous cottonwood and elms trees. The was used for family and charitable gatherings including fundraising garden parties in support of the Children’s Hospital.
In 1909, extensive alterations to the house designed by local architects Daniel Smithand William Bruce entailed gutting the house and completely rebuilding the interior.
By the 1950s, the house had fallen vacant and its furnishings were dispersed at auction in 1956. It was demolished later that year and the site is now occupied by a residential apartment building, the Elmcrest Apartments.
Cox House (1956)
Source: Winnipeg Tribune, 25 June 1956, page 15.
Postcard view of front hallway and staircase in the Cox House (no date)
Source: University of Alberta Library [Internet Archive]
Postcard view of billiard room in the Cox House (no date)
Source: University of Alberta Library [Internet Archive]
Postcard view of Elisabethian Café in the Cox House (no date)
Source: Internet ArchiveSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.92214, W97.13159
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Memorable Manitobans: John Hamilton Gordon Russell (1863-1946)
Manitoba Business: Pattinson and Eilbeck
Memorable Manitobans: Frederick John Charles “Fred” Cox (1860-1939)
Memorable Manitobans: Daniel Smith (1840-1913)
Memorable Manitobans: William Bruce (1852-?)
City of Winnipeg Building Permit 398/1900, City of Winnipeg Archives.
The Canadian Contract Record, Volume 31, 29 August 1900, page 3.
“Smith and Bruce are preparing drawings,” Winnipeg Tribune, 24 July 1909, page 17.
Winnipeg Fire Insurance Map #312, December 1917 [Revised September 1921], Library and Archives Canada.
“The Grange, 330 Anderson Avenue., St. John’s” by Lillian Gibbons, Winnipeg Tribune, 25 June 1956, page 15.
Winnipeg fire insurance map, #312 January 1957, City of Winnipeg Archives.
This page was prepared by Kenneth Ingram and Jordan Makichuk.
Page revised: 31 August 2025
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