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In the course of our daily reporting, we often uncover unusual projects, places, or connections that don't make the final cut. Instead of keeping it to ourselves, we're pleased to share our Architrivia.
Characterized by an absence of sidewalks and mature curbside trees, Ada Boulevard in the Highlands district is where a number of stately residences were established just before the First World War, when Edmonton's dramatic growth spurred the creation of 274 new subdivisions. The two-and-a-half storey Holgate Residence, a wood-frame building built of brick and clad in stucco, was an offspring of the entrepreneurship defining the city's flourishing business community.
Developer Bidwell Holgate was a prominent figure during this period of explosive development. He partnered with William J. Magrath in 1909 and founded the Magrath Holgate Company, which would go on to pioneer many of the city's neighbourhoods. The development and promotion of the Highlands was among their most challenging endeavors. Positioned as an exclusive residential community, the two affluent Edmontonians would build their own grandiose homes in the Highlands in the hopes of attracting other well-known residents to the neighbourhood. The 1912-built home cost $49,000; most residences at the time were built for one-tenth of that number.
The Holgate Residence was as much a marketing tool for the Highlands as it was a home. Noted Edmonton architects Arthur Nesbitt and Ernest W. Morehouse designed the building, which borrows design elements from several architectural styles popular during the Edwardian period. The hand-crafted materials and vernacular form of English rural architecture is represented inside, akin to the Arts and Crafts movement, while the asymmetrical massing and stucco-clad wood framing are evocative of the Tudor Revival style. The row of white Tuscan columns on the veranda, as well as the oak-carved Ionic columns found inside, are reminiscent of the Georgian Revival style. The resultant marriage of these styles produces a home of permanence and overwhelming splendor.
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