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1946 was the first full construction season after #WWII. With the return of veterans and start of the baby boom, there was a critical housing shortage in Edmonton. One @CityofEdmonton response was an 88-lot subdivision on land it owned at the top of Connors Hill.
50 ft lots had existed in Edmonton back to 1882 but war-time rationing sensibilities were still apparent in 1946. Here the 50-footers were the fancy top-of-bank lots while the ordinary lots, inside the subdivision, were 44’ - 46.’ They were also shallower: 114’ compared to 130.’
After some real estate drama, the City sold the subdivision to George Prudham. Prudham had been a contractor / building supplier since the 1930s. He helped start @chba_edmonton, was a federal cabinet minister in the 1950s & contested Edmonton’s dramatic 1963 mayoral election.
In 1946, though, he was all about getting houses onto the market quickly. That year he built 30 homes on the narrower lots on 91 St and 92 St: nine 900 ft2 bungalows and twenty-one 1200 ft2 semi-bungalows. Note the 2-big-1-small pattern.
Several of the bungalows have been replaced but all 21 of the semi-bungalows still exist. They are all of the same gable-to-the-front design adapted to the width of their lots and I’ve always admired them.
They were built with minor variations and in the ensuing 74 years have evolved in colours, materials, massing and landscaping. Diversity in unity, like people on a street or sonnets by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
There’s also something about me that appreciates their modesty. Turning the gable side to the front makes the homes narrower to the street and cosier on the block. Because of the lesser lot depth, the building setbacks are smaller, making the street feel more intimate.
George Prudham wasn’t thinking about solar access when he picked the house design, but each of these homes has a south-facing roof perfect for solar photovoltaics.
These homes are on tree-lined streets with the river valley on one end and the @yegvalleyLRT plus one of the most community-minded retail buildings in Edmonton on the other.
This is not to glorify single detached housing. Denser housing arrangements are essential to cities and there are amazing examples of them.
I know that this was once Indigenous territory, and I can’t un-see the productive farmland that these homes were built on and originally looked out upon.
These gablefront houses just have a character that I enjoy and a story I wanted others to know. If anyone can enrich the story by telling about the people who have called these places home I would love to hear about it.
