Cascade Lodge No. 5, known locally as the Masonic Hall, is one of Banff’s many heritage resources and come April 1 it will be under new ownership.
Banff Masons are donating the lodge and the lease for the triangular piece of property it sits on bounded by Lynx, Bear and Caribou Streets, to the Peter and Catharine Whyte Foundation, effective Tuesday (April 1).
Brett Oland, the foundation’s executive director, said adding the lodge to its inventory of heritage properties will free the Banff Masons to focus on what they do best, which is community support, and at the same time it provides the foundation with a hall that has strong historical value that can be used for the foundation’s growing event-based business.
Along with taking ownership of the Masonic Hall, the Peter and Catharine Whyte Foundation is also planning to sell one of its heritage residential properties, Mary Schäffer’s home, Tarry-A-While.
The donation of the lodge and the sale of Tarry-A-While will allow the foundation to better meet its core mandate, which is operating the Whyte Museum, Oland said in a recent interview with the Outlook.
“With the recent acquisition of the culturally significant Cascade Lodge No. 5, the Whyte Museum continues its stewardship of the historical fabric of the Bow Valley. Not only will the Lodge now have a secure and enduring future, it will also give the Whyte a dedicated space in which to conduct expanded programs, meetings and special events to showcase its impressive collection of artifacts and fine art,” Oland wrote in a follow-up email.
“Though managing and interpreting heritage properties remains one of the core mandates of the Whyte, certain changes are inevitable to ensure the sustainability of that mandate and allow the organization to move forward in changing times.”
Oland said taking on ownership of the hall and selling Tarry-A-While allows the foundation to diversify its financial portfolio and ensure a better cash flow, which Oland added can be challenging when most of its resources are tied up in residential properties.
“We are property managers and at the end of the day a lot of our eggs are in one basket and that is residential,” Oland said. “We have to be more versatile and we can’t have all of our stock in one thing. We’ll always have a strong presence in Banff and we’re looking to make our assets more liquid and focus on what we do best,” he said.
At the same time, Oland said the foundation does not have the resources to be proper stewards of the home.
“These heritage homes can be a drain on the foundation, so we’re focusing on our key business, which is the museum business. Most municipalities have their own body or commitment that looks after heritage properties. We have been stewards for a lot of heritage properties in town and that is fine, but there are some realities.”
One of those realities is that over its life, a 100-year-old building will likely need major renovations four times.
“We’re finding going forward we can’t be proper stewards of the property. We don’t have the staff,” he said, adding the foundation lacks the resources as well.
As part of the sale, interested buyers must present the foundation with a proposal that addresses specific criteria in place to ensure the historical home is protected.
The criteria include: first right of refusal if the private owner chooses to sell, community and Whyte access and accessibility to the public.
The buyer will be chosen by which proposal best meets the criteria, not necessarily the highest bidder. Funds from the sale of the property, likely worth approximately $1.2 million, will go into the Whyte Foundation endowment, which works off the interest and dividends to support museum operations, Oland said.
The foundation is also considering other residential properties that could be sold but has made no decisions on those.
The Masonic Lodge, meanwhile, will allow the Whyte Museum to offer an economical location for smaller events, along with its other recent acquisition, Abegweit, or the Crosby home, offering it to both residents and park visitors.
Oland said a lower-cost facility rental will draw more people to town who otherwise would not want to pay for the higher-priced rentals in local hotels or other large venues, while still bringing in visitors who would require hotel rooms, catering and other services.
The Masons founded Cascade Lodge in Anthracite, a coalmining town located east of Banff along the Cascade River, in 1888. They moved to Banff in 1892 and remained there until 1897, when the Masons went back to Anthracite until 1905. Following the closure of Anthracite’s coalmines, the Masons returned to Banff and built their hall in 1924 on the triangular lot bounded by Caribou, Bear and Lynx Streets.
For Banff Masons, according to Mason Bryn Jones, the move to donate the lodge and the lease to the Whyte Foundation is an ideal situation.
The lodge will be protected and used, while offering local Masons and Shriners, which is affiliated with the Masons, a place to meet free of charge.
That frees the Masons to support the community, rather than sink all of their funds into the maintenance of the historic building.
“What we are doing now is running down our savings and that is where the opportunity with the Whyte is so great. They’re all about retaining the legacy and the history and the connections to those who were here earlier on and this is a source of revenue and gets the building used,” Jones said.
In recent years, Jones said, the Masons had invested in the building to improve the washrooms and kitchen, but the only income they see is from members dues. The building houses a tenant – Tridon Communications – but after taxes, Jones said the group sees little end benefit.
With the formal transfer of the building and the lease to the Whyte Foundation fast approaching, Jones said the Masons are looking forward to getting back to business.
“It’s a great feeling. It enables us to get back to where we should be, which is concentrating on being good masons and being able to do more charitable work without always saying this needs doing, that needs doing, we need a new roof… then your whole fixation is we haven’t got the money to do that,” said Jones.
“This allows us to meet here. We’ve got no expenses on it. We have whole use of it for our meetings and we only meet two days per month. We are very, very fortunate to be able to carry on meeting like this and have the museum open.”
The lodge includes the Mason’s meeting room, which is also a museum, on the main floor and a banquet hall which can seat 130, along with offering a recently upgraded commercial kitchen in the basement.
The heritage buildings on the Whyte Museum property – the Whyte home, Moore house and the cabins – are seen as an extension of the museum and will not be considered for sale. Abegweit, which is a recent acquisition donated by the Crosby family of Banff, is included in that group.
“Abegweit, we have a great up and coming use for it and that is event rental and that will extend over to the Mason Hall,” Oland said.
