The mountains towering over the Three Sisters Creek
subdivision at Canmore are a striking reason to get off the highway to Banff and rest awhile.

Just a short distance from the Trans-Canada, you’ll find yourself amid pine trees with the majestic Three Sisters mountain above.

Recently, on the grand opening day of TGS Properties’ new subdivision, a spicy, natural-wood tang wafted through the showhomes on parade.

The eight homes on display feature alpine themes in natural materials, such as slate tiles, wood flooring, pine detailing inside and timber outside.

Photos by Kristian Bogner, Extreme Media
The Three Sisters Creek project boasts eight alpine-themed show homes in a strikingly natural environment.

Jenelle Wohlberg of TGS Properties Inc. pointed out stringent architectural controls, including minimal tree removal in the landscaping plans.

Prices in the development will run from $175,900 to more than $1 million for residences ranging from apartment condos to estate homes.

Three Sisters Creek will eventually include 128 single-family homes, 26 duplexes and about 500 multi-family homes. The Three Sisters Mountain Village, when it is fully built in 11 to 13 years, will have about 3,500 homes, 45 holes of golf, a golf academy, 650,000 sq. ft. of commercial development and up to six hotels.

Morrison Mountain Homes has been an estate home builder for 41 years in Calgary, and won the builder of the year award in 2001.



Area sales manager Lynn Slocombe noted the timber detailing on the outside and the rich use of wood on the inside as examples of the alpine architecture in Morrison’s arts-and-crafts style home.

The polished wood stairs lead from a slate-tiled entry up to a living room where Rundlestone surrounds the
fireplace. In the other direction from the living room, a den or home office is well lit by natural light.

The showhome is priced at $1.2 million on an average lot.

Wilderness Homes by Riverdale, a Canmore builder, showed off a house with a lighter pinewood in the
interior finishing and a rock facing around the fireplace in the living room.

A spokeswoman says the pine motif is what buyers want in the Canmore area. Four years ago, the pine theme was an upgrade, but now it is included in the base package. Riverdale will customize by removing features that buyers don’t want, as well as adding in items.

Other builders in Three Sisters Creek include Mountainside Homes by Assured, Cardel Custom Homes, Alpine Homes, Swan Homes, Cove Properties and Medican Construction.

* * *

Building permits and prices of new houses both rose on the national scene over the summer.

Statistics Canada’s new housing price index rose 0.2 per cent from June to July. The increase was more moderate than the sharper rises reported since February, but it still put contractors’ selling prices four per cent ahead of July 2001.

Building permits set a record during the month, hitting $4 billion, the national statistical agency reported. Both residential and non-residential sectors helped push the figures up three per cent from June.

In the housing price index, Regina led the way with a rise of 1.3 per cent, attributed to both material and labour costs. Nine of 21 urban centres in the survey had increases in house prices in July.

Edmonton and St. John’s followed Regina with rises of 0.4 per cent each. Calgary, Halifax, Toronto and Hamilton had increases of 0.3 per cent. Sudbury-Thunder Bay and Winnipeg each had increases of 0.2 per cent.

Edmonton had the biggest increase from the previous year at 7.7 per cent, ahead of Ottawa-Gatineau at 7.6 per cent, and Montreal and Calgary at 5.3 per cent each. It was the first time since June 2000 that the National Capital Region didn’t have the largest annual increase, Statistics Canada said.