ALBERT RAVVIN HOUSE
Firm: William G. Milne
Address: 1228 Belavista Crescent SW
Date of final plans: May 1967
Status: standing as built
Bill Milne's design for Albert Ravvin is essentally an H-plan, however, the left bar of the H has been turned ~10 degrees anticlockwise to fit the wedge-shaped lot. The horizontal bar of the H holds the entrance hall, family room, and kitchen, and a sliding door from the family room exits to the patio. The left bar holds the garage, laundry room, and four bedrooms. In the right bar there is a powder room, den, dining room, and living room. Only the left wing has a basement. In the basement there is a private suite that includes a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. There is also a rumpus room and storage room.
The house is faced in Rundle stone trucked from Mount Rundle in Banff. At the time, the use of mountain stone on a city house was undoubtedly novel. The flooring in the entrance hall, kitchen, and family room is a dark stone that may have been Rundle also. The roof is clad in cedar shingles. The house is largely original today, though the second owners added landscaping and a new driveway surface.
My sincere thanks to Norm Ravvin for additional information and photographs.
THE CLIENT
Albert Ravvin (1920–1984) was born in Calgary to Israel Ravvin and Shifra Shapiro. Albert attended the University of British Columbia in the early 1940s and then from 1942 to 1945 served in the Royal Canadian Navy. After the War he opened Ravvin's, an appliance and furniture store. The Ravvin's store building still stands at 1010 6 Avenue SW (see photo above).
In 1961 Ravvin married Hannah "Nan" Eisenstein (1930–2020). Nan was born in Radzanow, Poland on 8 October 1930 to Yehuda-Yosef and Chaya-Dina Eisenstein. In 1930 Yehuda-Yosef immigrated to Canada, and in 1935 he brought his family over and settled with them in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Albert and Nan had two children: Norman and David. Ravvin died on 25 July 1984 at age 63.