Winnipeg house in Norwood Flats has a Neil Young connection

Neil Young and his mom, Edna (aka Rassy) in 1966. (Photo courtesy John Einarson)

At first glance, the home in Winnipeg’s Norwood Flats is not remarkable, looking similar to others on the street that have stood for decades.

However, the house on Beechwood Place boasts a connection to one of Manitoba’s most famous residents.

It was owned by Cornelius “Neil” Hoogstraten and Lavinia Merle “Vinia” Ragland, the aunt and uncle of Neil Young.

Amber Pohl, the current owner of the house, has owned the home for the past 18 years, and said the connection has come up many times over the years.

“I had a situation one time where I was renewing my licence at a local insurer, and I mentioned the home address and somebody said, ‘Oh, is that the Neil Young house?’” she said during a recent interview.

“I’ve bumped into people in the community as well where they’ve said that and people have come just to take a look at the house and drive by it.”

Short time in Winnipeg

Young’s time in Winnipeg only lasted for five years, from 1960 to 1965, but it played a major part in shaping his career.

“He formed his first bands, got his first electric guitar, wrote his first songs, and really dreamed of making music his life being here in Winnipeg,” said John Einarson, a Winnipeg music historian who has chronicled Young extensively.

Young first lived in the Earl Grey apartments off Corydon when residing in Winnipeg and later rented the second floor of a home on Grosvenor Avenue with his mother. He also spent hours at his aunt and uncle’s home in the city.

Hoogstraten, according to the Manitoba Historical Society, was an artist, a long-time member of the Winnipeg Sketch Club and was one of the founders of Forum Art Centre in St. Boniface. Ragland was a writer who wrote human interest stories for magazines in the 1950s and 1960s and was the sister of Edna “Rassy” Young, the musician’s mother.

Einarson recalls it was the Hoogstratens that helped him break the ice with Young. He was writing a series of news articles in the 1980s about the Winnipeg music scene in the 1960s and was able to interview Edna, who ended up giving him Young’s home phone number unprompted.

“I call the number, Neil answered and he said, ‘Oh, hi John, I have your articles right here,’” Einarson recalled. “The Hoogstratens had been sending him all of my articles about the bands and his contemporaries, including one on The Squires.”

Einarson has interviewed Neil multiple times over the decades and said Neil still keeps in touch with extended family in Manitoba, bringing relatives and cousins to concerts in Winnipeg when he stops in the city.

A Christmas story

The Hoogstraten home also plays host to a story involving one of Neil’s other contemporaries in the music scene, Pohl recalled.

Young was around 20 years old and went to watch musicians in Winnipeg and called his aunt and uncle on Christmas Eve asking if it was okay to bring a friend over, because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“They walked all the way from somewhere downtown into Norwood, and it was Joni Mitchell,” she said. “She spent Christmas in the house here with Neil and his family.”

Einarson has heard two different versions of the story. He said he heard the story that Mitchell was in town to perform on ‘Let’s Sing Out!’, which was being taped at the University of Manitoba, and ran into Young, who was carrying a Christmas tree to his aunt and uncle’s home and brought her over.

The other version he heard from Young was that he met her at the 4D, a popular folk music venue in Winnipeg.

But their meeting involved two of their iconic songs.

According to Einarson, Young played Mitchell a song he wrote on his birthday about not wanting to grow up. It was “Sugar Mountain,” which was later released on the 1977 album “Decade.”

“Whether he played it at the Hoogstratens or at the 4D Club, she was quite taken by the song, but she said she felt the song was too pessimistic, and becoming an adult isn’t quite as bad as that,” he said.

So she wrote a song in response to it, talking about how great growing up is.

That song? “The Circle Game.”

‘More than welcome to visit’

Pohl has never met the legend, but says she has seen him perform several times, most recently in 2019.

She said Young has an open invitation to visit her home.

“We’d love to host him. That would be incredible,” she said. “The house probably looks quite different. You know, there’s been a lot of upgrades over the years. It’s almost 80 years old at this point, but I imagine he has memories, and he had cousins in the house as well. So, you know, he’d certainly be more than welcome.”

(Author’s note: CTV News reached out to Neil Young for an interview, but he was not available. If Young does wish to talk, he is more than welcome to drop a line or come for a walk in Norwood Flats.)