A downtown room to let
by Lawrence Herzog
It's Our Heritage | Vol. 27 No. 5 | February 05, 2009
Armstrong building. File photo
In Edmonton’s formative years, before the popularization of the motor vehicle, many members of the workforce preferred to live near their place of employment. As many of the jobs were downtown, demand for housing grew in the districts close to the heart of the city.
The city’s early working class couldn’t easily afford to buy real estate, and so many rented rooms, apartments and modest suites. The first apartment building, the Arlington, opened in 1909 (and has now sadly been lost to a fire that has left it beyond economically feasible salvage). Others quickly followed, answering the demand for a comfortable room to let in boomtime Edmonton.
Many of those early apartment and mixed use commercial buildings have been lost to the march of time, but a few survive. Here’s a look at four of them.
Jasper Block, 10516 Jasper Avenue
This three-storey brick building was built in 1909 and 1910 and financed by John Kelly, a blacksmith who made the jump to real estate and development in the heady days of the city’s first boom of the 20th century. Constructed at the western edge of downtown in the city’s fledgling warehouse and wholesale district, the $30,000 building included commercial tenants at street level and apartments above.
It was designed by the Edmonton architectural firm of Hopkins and Wright and survives as a good example of the simple, yet pleasing commercial architecture typical of early Edmonton. While not ornate, it is enlivened by a stone nameplate set into the parapet, arcaded brick detailing just below the cornice, and stone string courses defining the three floors.
The local contracting firm of Edinger and Nesbitt was hired to build it atop a concrete foundation and with framing of steel and wood. Restoration work carried out on the building in 2003 revealed steel supports on the main floor and wood framing above.
The 30 small two-room apartments on the upper two floors provided accommodation for virtually the entire 20th century. Over the years, its three commercial storefronts have been home to ladies' wear, hat shops and restaurants, among other uses.
MacLean Block, 10702 Jasper Avenue
Built in 1909 for about $35,000 by physician and surgeon Dr. James Douglas MacLean, this three-storey block originally contained stores on the main floor, offices on the second, and “rooming apartments” on the third. It was designed by James E. Wize, and boasted the finest brickwork, with elaborate brick detailing and roundheaded arches to imitate the stone architecture of Renaissance Italy. The style is sometimes known as Victorian Italianate Renaissance.
MacLean's permit, number 155, created a big stir in the little city that was then home to barely 19,000 residents. By building a mixed use block, MacLean diversified his sources of income and diminished his risk.
Even so, there were some who wondered about the speculative venture because of its location so far west of the downtown core. But it connected the downtown with the developing government centre a few blocks to the south and history would show that MacLean was right on the money with his foresight.
The third floor remained rental apartments until 1977, when an ambitious restoration was launched, and the top two floors were rejuvenated as office space.
Lemarchand Mansion, 11523 100 Avenue
Rene Lemarchand was in his 50s when he landed in Edmonton in 1905 with his wife and three daughters to join his brother, Alphonse, who was a priest at St. Joachim’s parish. A retired butler, Rene was said to have inherited a large number of straight razors from an eccentric Parisian nobleman who used a new razor every day. In an era where straight razors were both expensive and durable, this was a sizeable legacy.
Lemarchand became a real estate speculator and, supplemented by investment funds from the waiters'union in Paris, L'Union des Garcons de Cafe, began construction of his apartment building in 1909. It was his ambition to build the most luxurious apartment in Canada. He hired renowned local architect, Alfred Merigon Calderon, to design a lavish European style building in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
Completion was scheduled for 1910 at an estimated cost of $140,000, but a series of builders' strikes and some other circumstances delayed its opening until 1912 and pushed the final construction cost to nearly $200,000. Built to attract upper income families and singles alike, all 43 suites came with one or two fireplaces and an exterior window.
No expense was spared to offer the latest conveniences. The building boasted one of Edmonton’s first elevators, electric dumbwaiters to carry parcels and packages to upper levels, a mail chute, iron balconies and a coal degasifier that produced natural gas for cooking and heating.
Armstrong Building, 10127 104 Street
It cost the Armstrong Brothers (Reginald Wilfred Ross and Louis Herbert Smith) $88,000 to build their rectangular, four-storey block between April and December 1912 – the height of the city's pre First World War building boom. The design by David Hardy made it the first along the Warehouse Row of 104th Street to offer space for wholesale trade, offices and apartment dwelling under one roof.
The square stairwell was originally intended for an elevator, but the brothers ran out of money, so they never built the elevator. Instead, a poor man's lift – a cross beam and hook which is still atop the staircase on the fourth floor – was used for lifting furniture in and out of the building's 51 suites.
Over the years, hundreds of tenants have called the Armstrong Block 'home.' In the early days, they included Robert Tegler, the man who financed the Tegler Building (since demolished). He rented Suite 219 from 1913 to 1920.
Many stayed much longer – like Sophie Arensen, who lived in Suite 453 for 45 years. Ms. Arensen was a seamstress for Holt Renfrew and stayed at the Armstrong until she moved to Vancouver at the age of 85.
In the basement, two original steam boilers, manufactured by Robb Engineering of Amherst, Nova Scotia and stamped May 28, 1912, long provided heat. The boilers were fired with coal, shoveled in through chutes in an adjacent coal room.
The original bathrooms featured cast iron tubs and signs headlined 'Rules Toilets, Etc.' Among the dictums: 'No washing of clothes' and 'Each tenant must clean bath after use with Dutch Cleanser.' A century after the district came to life, the block remains part of a remarkable intact grouping of warehouses and commercial blocks on the western edge of downtown.
Next week: Edmonton’s 1914 Apartments
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