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Local House Holds Romantic History (interview with Mrs. Ada Hagerman, Sylvan Lake News, January 27, 1981)
If you’re heading to Sylvan Lake this weekend, take a walk around. There’s some amazing local history.
It almost reads like a Harlequin romance but it happened here in Sylvan Lake back in 1905. She came from “royalty” in France, fell in love with a commoner and married. Taboo in those days, she was ordered to get out of the country but was given all the money she desired. This was the beginning of a unique historical event not to be excluded from Sylvan Lake history books. Evidence of the romance now lies in a stone castle located on 50A Street.
When Mr. and Mrs. Archambeau left France in disgrace, they came to Sylvan Lake with a dream to build themselves a home which was almost identical to the bride’s royal fortress. After years of toil and hard labour, their dream was fulfilled. Local resident Ada Hagerman told the News of problems the young couple ran into before their dream finally became a reality. A young girl at the time, Mrs. Hagerman related incidents she remembered when the building was being constructed as rather comical.
“The Archambeaus started building their castle in 1905 or 1906,” she said. “At first they built a raft made of a plank and two logs and pushed it up and down the lakeshore picking up special rocks for the castle.” Aided by another couple, the men then dragged stones on a deer hide nailed to a pole to the building site while the women carried what they could in their arms. Progress, of course, was slow. It all changed one day, though, when the Archambeaus saw a wheelbarrow and what it could do.
Mrs. Hagerman laughingly said the couple were so intrigued with the device they went home and built one themselves. There was a problem, though. The wooden wheelbarrow did not work as well as they had expected. They had built a six-sided wheel! After advice and a new wheelbarrow from Mrs. Hagerman’s father, the problem was solved. But before convenience of a wheelbarrow came, about seven feet of the castle had already been constructed.
Although Mrs. Archambeau had money, for the first two years the couple could only work with wood and nails. Finally, in 1910, they were able to build a cement house adjacent to the castle.
Mrs. Hagerman said the couple used to keep goats up in the castle. After going to a sale one day and buying the critters, they realized they had no place to keep them until a shed and fence could be built. The logical think seemed to be carrying them up to the castle.
Years later, tragedy struck the Archambeaus. Mr. Archambeau died of what residents thought was cancer, although no one was ever sure. Childless, Mrs. Archambeau returned to France and was never heard from again. But history of the castle was to go on being told from decade to decade. Throughout the years it has been used as a ‘honeymoon castle’ for both local and city residents and has passed from owner to owner.
There is no one currently living in the castle, but the adjacent Holbrook Cottage has allowed the Archives to install a signpost as part of our Legacy Trail Walking Tour – Preserving the Past for Future Generations.
Read some other stories about Sylvan Lake’s history – Click here.
Published by Todayville originally on September 4, 2017
Marion Thompson
Sylvan Lake & District Archives
5012 – 48 Avenue, Lower Level, Municipal Government Building
Sylvan Lake, AB T4S 1G6
403-887-1185 x262
archives@sylvanlake.ca
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