[2] Burns Manor was built in the Neo-Gothic style with both Arts and Crafts and Chateau motifs.

"[2] Symmetrical in design, it had steeply pitched gables, ornate sandstone carvings of gargoyles and coats of arms.

The extensively landscaped property, surrounded by a low stone wall, resembled an English country garden.

Rattenbury wrote his mother from the Alberta Hotel in Calgary on July 26, "we are laying out the lines of his [Burns] new house."

On their return to Calgary in August they took up residence in the Alberta Hotel where they remained until the house was completed, considerably behind schedule, in January 1903.

[2] Head Gardener, William Reader and his wife lived in the coach house on the property until he left Burns' employ and in 1912 became Calgary's Superintendent of Parks.

[2] On July 30, 1941 the Department of Pensions and Health was authorized to purchase the property and construction of a new hospital began a year later.

[2] In May 1955 Mrs. A. H. Turney, President of the Colonel Belcher Hospital Women's Auxiliary led an unsuccessful attempt to save the "historical landmark" from demolition lobbying the Department of Veterans Affairs and the City of Calgary.

[2] City workers moved sandstone from the demolished mansion to the hillside at the north end of Riley Park and in June 1956 construction began on the Senator Patrick Burns Memorial Gardens.