For nearly a century, it has served as a home for neglected and delinquent children, a hospital for expectant mothers, a hotel and an apartment block. Now, 95 years since it was built, the Ross Flats Apartments is still a place of refuge.

The three-storey brick building at 9540 101 Street, in the belly of the river valley, was constructed in 1911 by the City of Edmonton on land acquired from the Hudsons Bay Company. The facility was opened as a Home for Delinquent and Neglected Children, and replaced a smaller building at 47 Cameron Street, just east of downtown above Riverdale. Today, the building is the only shelter for children surviving from Edmontons early years. It is also one of the few remaining buildings in the river flats neighbourhood of Rossdale, named after homesteader Donald Ross, to witness the great flood of 1915.

Long time caretaker Albert Evans, who recently turned 90, speaks fondly of the building he has known for most of his long life. We still have people coming to see the place they were born, he said They come from Australia, Alaska, all over the place. There are a lot of memories in this old building.

The building was designed by James Henderson, a leading city architect of the day. Originally from England, Henderson arrived in Edmonton in the early years of the 20th century and set up his practice.

Henderson drew the plans for several other noteworthy Edmonton buildings, including the Brighton Block (1911-12), the Moser and Ryder Block (1910; re-faced in 1944) and Fire Hall Number Five (1910). He also designed the Glenora Mansion for Attorney General Charles Cross, built in 1912 and demolished in 1977.

The Ross Flats building served as a home for children until 1925, when the city opened a new facility at 10759 98 Street. The structure was leased to the Salvation Army and operated as the Grace Hospital until 1936, when it was converted back to a shelter for children.

Thats the year Alberts mother became the buildings matron. Between 1942 and 1944, the building was used as a stopping place for American servicemen on their way to the Alaska Highway. In those days, it was called the Little America Transit Hotel.

At the end of the war, the building was converted to a dozen apartments (complete with 12-foot ceilings) but traces of its earlier incarnations remain. Showers installed by the servicemen, for instance, are still in use on the second floor.

It was during the war years that Albert and his wife Lucie, now 85, moved into the building. Theyve lived there for the last 63 years and now reside in one of the spacious main floor suites (his mothers former quarters).

When I visited them in 1998, they kept me enthralled for more than an hour with stories, from the humourous to the bizarre, culled over their life in the building. There was a lady who lived here who fell for a bus driver, Lucie recalls.

Every day, when he used to drive past on 97th Avenue, she would stand out on the balcony and wave a pair of red panties. Everybody knew what was going on, but nobody said anything.

The building has remained virtually unaltered for its 95 years. Inside the hallways, walls and dozen suites, many original design features endure.

At the main entrance, the date 1911 is still inlaid in the original terrazzo flooring. The original fir staircase rises at the centre of the building from the main to third floor. The staircase is topped by the original skylight.

This is the swimming pool, Albert says, gesturing to the cast iron tub in the bathroom of their suite. Its one of three original bathtubs still in the building.

In the second floor hallway, an original fire reel hangs from the wall. The laundry chute system is also still intact, although no longer in use because of fire department regulations.

The second floor case room where the babies were born during days as Grace Hospital is now a bathroom. The rooms where the infant formula was heated have become a suite. What were dormitory rooms are now bedrooms and living rooms.

Since alterations at the end of the Second World War, not much has changed. Weve got some tenants who have been here more than 25 years, Albert says. People get comfortable living here and they dont want to leave.

In the basement, the Oakwood Spencer boiler still chugs away, now powered by natural gas, not coal. The coal room and coal chute (sealed by bricks) are still visible as are meat hooks hanging next to a fir-lined cold storage room where sides of meat were kept.

Arctic Ice used to be right across the street and we used to get ice delivery every day by horse and wagon, Albert recalls. There was no refrigeration of course, so the ice was very important. People were coming and going and the place was really hopping in those days.

The original dumbwaiter is still in place as are antique urinals in the mens washroom. They wanted to take them out for a museum, but I wouldnt let them, Albert winks.

But the building has made history at least twice. It was a location shoot for two movies The Little Vampires and Seven Bullets. In the first flick, the vampires flew into the buildings top floor. Weve not seen a ghost, never mind vampires, Lucie laughs, putting to rest any hope for a haunting.

In the 1990s, the city, which still owns the building, replaced the roof and rebuilt balconies at the north and south ends. Apart from some alterations to openings on the rear elevation and the north and south balconies, the original exterior character of this building is intact and the building is largely unaltered.

In recognition of its significant heritage value, it was designated a Municipal Historic Resource in March 2001.