Wawanesa retiree takes on abandoned 120-year-old brick home

Neil Friesen is covered in dust. He stands inside a construction site on First Street in Wawanesa, Man., dressed in a dirty ballcap, blue overalls and a frayed T-shirt.

Friesen, 74, with a white mustache and a friendly smile, walks to the back of the garage site. He leans behind a broken piano, connects two cords, and stands up. A light switch beckons.

Flick.

Bulbs glow again at the abandoned home on 137 First Street in Wawanesa for the first time in years. Friesen has crossed a milestone in his project to remodel the 120-year-old brick structure and put it up for sale.

Friesen, a Wawanesa hobbyist who has transformed school buses into greenhouses and telephone poles into shingles, is focused on rebuilding this trouble property. In an interview in March, he shared details about where the project started and where it is going.

In 2023, the house went up for auction. It had been abandoned by its owner, and Friesen won a bidding war that started at $5,500 and rose to $11,000. The local retiree saw potential in the property, which was left in complete disarray with “garbage everywhere” in and outside the house.

Since buying the lot that year, Friesen said he has done a number of things: bulldozed multiple structures on the property, removed a rusty ‘26 chevy truck, filled two 25- and 40-cubic-yard dumpsters, replaced the flooring on the ground level, built a garage, installed electric circuits, reframed the windows and kept old bricks for new work.

The restoration has picked up a lot of interest from the community — the construction is impossible to miss in Wawanesa as the home stands straight-ahead when driving south into town. And, it had built a reputation for itself beforehand.

When Friesen announced the work was starting, more than 200 people responded online.

“I’m so glad this landed in the right hands!” wrote social media user Mel Herda. “I was concerned when I first seen activity around there and thought someone might be demolishing it and was heartbroken if that was the case!”

Another user, Marc Bergen, wrote: “I’m so glad someone bought this piece of history and is going to keep it alive!”

The goal for the brick home is a two bedroom, 1.5 bathroom and 1,000-square-foot remodel, with accents from its history. Friesen kept an etched-glass front door, depicting a heron in tall grass, as well as the stained window from the front and bricks from the caved-in garage. He’ll use these features to keep the character of the home.

The property will probably go for sale, he said. But the timeline is unknown as Friesen said the most important thing about this project is that it’s leisure, not work.

“When I feel nice and the weather’s good, I work here,” he said from the site, on a sunny 10 C day in Wawanesa. “I’m not putting pressure on.”

Neither is the community. Fast or slow, many people said they’re just happy that the property is moving in the right direction.

Due to its condition, the Wawanesa home had previously been featured on a popular social media group called ‘Rustic Relics Manitoba.’ Photos of the Wawanesa home were posted to showcase another example of derelict, forgotten buildings across the province.

“Hard to believe this beautiful house was abandoned,” wrote Albert Roy at the time. “Still looks in great condition.”

Hundreds have taken interest in the remodel ever since, including those next door.

Neighbour Jacques Beaudette said he’s one of the curious onlookers. He toured the building with Friesen to learn about the work, and even joined the construction crew one day when Friesen lacked the right tool.

“I just lent him a jackhammer, ‘cause why not?” Beaudette said. Concrete in the basement of the home had to be dug up and removed, a job that wound up including Beaudette as he, Friesen, and Friesens’ sons heaved chunks out of the basement window.

Those online see the remodel as interesting, but neighbours see another angle, that it’s a boon to the community. Beaudeatte said beforehand, there was junk all over the lawn and the structure nearest to him was caved-in. It made for an ugly sight through his kitchen window every day for years.

Neighbour Ellen Simpson agreed. She also said she would hear teenagers in the abandoned home, it would stink from time to time, and house wild animals.

“Racoons would reside in the out-buildings,” said Simpson. “My garbage was always being gone-through and that made a lot of messy clean ups.”

Standing on her porch in March, the sound of distant hammering echoes from Friesen nextdoor. He is reframing windows alone in the construction site, in anticipation that a shipment of windows will arrive in the next week or two.

The project is far from over — still on the docket are plans to redo the kitchen, install the windows, add a laundry room, add a bathroom upstairs, expand the garage, fix the veranda outdoors and build a new driveway.

When asked for the finish-date, Friesen said he has no idea when the project will come to an end. He mentioned it’s leisure — and then complained of stiffness from standing too long, raised his boot to a pile of wood and lunged to stretch.

Friesen said he doesn’t know how much he will ask for the property. About $25,000 of expenses, not counting his own work, had gone into the property as of March.

On a recent warm day, snow melts into mud around the property. A pile of rocks stack at the window of the basement — to keep the water out. Walls stand bare where the kitchen is to be built, the porch is ripped off, and fresh air blows through empty windowframes.

The electricity in the garage is just a start.

This story was originally published in the Brandon Sun. It is republished under a Creative Commons license as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.