Statement of Significance
Description of Historic Place
The James A. Ross Residence, built in 1907, is a stylistically modest, one and one-half storey Edwardian Gable Front house, clad in painted-wood clapboards, whose facade is dominated by a full-width open porch and steeply-pitched front gable.
Heritage Value
The James A. Ross Residence, built in 1907, is a good representative example of an Edwardian Gable Front house, retaining a high degree of integrity. Along with its style-defining steeply-pitched front-facing gable, other common style features seen in this house are its symmetrical upper storey with central window, asymmetrical first storey, and front porch. It is almost certainly based on a pattern-book design.
This home provides a tangible reminder of the historic development of Inglewood in the early 20th century as the city’s main industrial centre and residential area for factory workers and other labourers who needed to live near their places of employment. It is typical of the practical, modest dwellings built for and owned by working-class residents in the neighbourhood and around Calgary during this period.
The community that became known as Inglewood was Calgary’s birthplace, first settled in 1875 soon after the founding of nearby Fort Calgary. As the expected site of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s mainline station, the area attracted early land speculators, notably Major John Stewart who in 1882, with partner Acheson Gosford Irvine (the NWMP Commissioner), surveyed the land then laid out and sold lots. Soon there were more than 300 people living in shacks and tents on those lots.
However, after the CPR announced in 1883 that it would bypass the fledging settlement and locate its station on undeveloped land further west, the community languished. During 1883–4, several buildings were slid across the frozen Elbow River and others simply abandoned. As of 1902 there were just 37 homes here, plus the Calgary Brewing and Malting Co., Patrick Burns’ meat packing plant, and a CPR shop. Trying to re-market the land as an exclusive residential area, Major Stewart built his own fine home here (in 1885), as did the brewery’s founder A.E. Cross and a few other prosperous citizens.
The community, then known as East Calgary or Brewery Flats, developed instead as Calgary's major industrial area. By September 1908 more than a dozen other major employers joined those first three, including Alberta Iron Works, Western Milling Company, Cushing Brothers Sash and Door Factory, Canada Cement, and several oil companies. Soon clusters of single-family homes were built for workers who needed to live near these employers.
Until 1907 the block where the Ross Residence is located, as well as other nearby land, remained undeveloped, owned by a single investor (George Irvine, a Quebec judge, from 1889 to 1898; then Murray Kennedy, a Quebec merchant). In 1905 most of this block was acquired by Calgary merchants Thomas Alexander Hatfield and Robert J. McLaren, who began to sell off lots individually, in pairs, and in groups.
In 1907 James A. Ross, a patternmaker for Alberta Iron Works, purchased the lot, had this house built, and lived in it until 1910. As of 1910 there were 2 houses and a church on this side of the block and 10 single-family homes and a boarding house on the other side. Other residents of the 1400 block in 1910 included a miller, grocer, labourer, carpenter, painter, machinist, secretary, and two iron moulders. From 1910 until 1919, the house was owned and occupied by James Pinel, a steamfitter for the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company.
The longest residents were John and Annie Banks who had two sons. After working for others, John, a tinsmith, formed John Banks and Son (later Sons), located at 1206 9 Av SE from 1950 through 1982. After his death in 1963, Annie stayed on. Their son Robert, a machinist, lived there as well, either continually or intermittently, in the 1940s through 1970s. He owned as well as occupied the house after Annie’s death in 1972 until he died in 1981.
Today this house contributes to an intact block of early 20th-century homes. Most of the 25 houses and church present on a 1921 map remain today, largely unaltered.
Character-Defining Elements
- one and one-half stories with partial basement, off-centre front entrance, side-hall plan;
- steeply-pitched front-gable roof with projecting eaves, cross-gable dormers, closed soffits;
- central brick chimney with corbelled cap;
- wood frame construction clad in painted-wood clapboards and shakes (porch, dormers), painted Douglas fir door and window surrounds, concrete foundation;
- one-over-one sash windows, painted wood storm windows (three remaining);
- open front porch (originally half-width, changed before Nov. 1921 to full-width) with hipped roof with closed soffits, balustrade clad in painted-wood shakes with a plain painted-wood sill, painted-wood square tapered porch posts with moulded capitals, plain boxed cornice, wood plank flooring, wood tongue-and-groove ceiling;
- painted-wood panelled front door with six upper panes; Douglas fir panelled interior front door with decorative leaded-glass inset;
- interior features including Douglas fir finishings comprising closed staircase and balustrade, doorway surround with half-height Tuscan columns (between living and dining rooms), moulded window and door casings with corner blocks, panelled doors, small closet door, beamed ceiling (living room), crown moulding, baseboards; ornate plated-steel heat registers; original wood wall-mounted kitchen cabinet and built-in bedroom cabinet; and
- medium set-back on a grass-planted lot on a residential street.
Location