A key historic building in downtown Lacombe has a whole new ‘lease on life’ thanks to the efforts of Leon Sulzle.
The former A-1 Restaurant was built in 1900 and had been the A-1 for as long as anyone can recall. “It was one of the first businesses built in Lacombe,” he said.
“I purchased the building in May of 2021. I remember going through it, looking at all of this stuff — everything had been left behind,” he explained. “It does have a very rich history.
“We’ve also tried to find out when it became the A-1 Cafe — and nobody is old enough to know, and if they are old enough, they were infants,” he added with a laugh.
“I’ve talked to guys who are 80 to 90 years old, and they’ve said it was the A-1 Cafe when their parents took them there.
“We are still trying to make it look like old-time Lacombe.”
The building hasn’t received an official historic designation, as the original front of the building had been changed in years past.
“Once that change happens, the historic designation is over,” he explained.
But there is an upside to that, as it means he is relatively free to renovate the structure as he wishes.
With a designation, several standards must be followed through any refurbishments.
For Sulzle, who was in the home building business for 20 years and has called Lacombe home his entire life, it’s been a pretty amazing journey seeing the building go through a careful restoration process.
For one thing, it’s been an intriguing window into the structure’s past.
From cedar walls, fir ceilings, and maple floors - quality materials were utilized in the building’s construction.
“Money was definitely been put into the building back then,” he said.
As to the work to restore it, Sulzle noted that there were seven layers of flooring, five layers of paneling, and no insulation in the building.
“We are putting a brick facade on it, and we’ve put in some big windows — just making it a little more modern,” he said.
There are also several rumors as to what parts of the building served as over the years, including a brothel possibly being located on the second floor.
Sulzle said he doesn’t doubt that, as they were quite common across the region at the turn of the last century.
Plus, there were a total of nine small rooms up there before the renovations.
But as he noted, it’s the scope of items that he has discovered that have been truly fascinating, including a perfume bottle from around the late 1800s.
He also found a large safe, which unfortunately isn’t possible to open.
Meanwhile, over the past five months or so, work on the building has accelerated — before that, the work was more on an incremental basis.
Looking ahead, the revamped building has a promising future indeed.
“For the upstairs, I’m hoping to do an air B&B — a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit with a games room, a family room, a dining room and a kitchen,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be pretty amazing.”
Another option would be to turn the upper floor into apartments.
Meanwhile, the facade is pretty close to being finished, and Sulzle is excited to showcase the finished project to the community.
“It’s going to be pretty shiny compared to what it was before,” he said.
“I’m also excited to share the history that I have discovered with the building,” he said, recalling a chat with a 90-year-old man who said he had made his first phone call in the building.
“I found a movie listing from 1955, with phone listings of just two or three numbers,” he said.
“I also think of the parties held there — at the end of World War One and World War Two.”
He has also found several items in the walls, including old beer bottles, a vintage Coca-Cola poster, and a boxing poster for a fight from the early 1930s.
“I’m so excited to take the tarps down,” he said.
“There has not been one day that I have come to this project and not been excited about it.”