The Past

This Property Is Condemned

My wife and I bought this house for $125,000 back in September 2006. At the time, Edmonton's market was going haywire, and this seemed like a good buy, since the price was pretty much lot value at the time. The house was stripped down almost to nothing. No plumbing, electrical, heating, nothing remained. The lath and plaster was out, any and all fixtures, even the windows were either old or badly in need of replacing.

It was bare bones, existing in a state of very raw potential only. The house had previously been condemned by the City of Edmonton and the local health authority.  It's known to the City as DH207 (Derelict House 207).

The foundation was the most serious issue, a crumbling foundation more crack than concrete, stinky, musty, old, decrepit, _________ (think of any other nasty and denigrating words you can think of and insert here). It was not a place fit to live, although shockingly, someone previously did rent out a "suite" in the basement. A recent city election and the mailouts that came with it revealed to me that this was one of 6 units in a then 1500 +/- square foot building.

In the upstairs, previous renovations had also interfered with the integrity of the structure.  The place was a mess, which was too bad, because it would have been a fine house when it was first built.

Foursquare?  For Sure!  

As for the house, it falls into the style category known as American Four Square or Prairie Box. To get you started on the typical features of these houses, go check out a description of the Foursquare style.

The house once had a front porch, but this was torn off by a previous owner.  Less typically, it had a balcony of sorts, which explains the door to nowhere in the first picture on the home page.  On the main floor, there was a living room in the front, with a kitchen and dining room in the back.  There probably was also a bathroom (not original if there was).  Upstairs, there were four smallish bedrooms and a small bathroom, all branching off a central hallway.  There was almost no storage to speak of.  A hatch at one end of the hall led to the attic, which was undeveloped, except for the pigeons occasionally nesting in the dormers.

From Proudly Owned to Poorly Rented

The house wasn't always "unfit for human habitation". Going back as far as 1913 in city records, it shows that for many decades, the house enjoyed stable ownership under a handful of owners. The most interesting discovery about the house's previous residents was learning that Grant Notley, former leader of Alberta's New Democratic Party and the first NDP candidate elected to the provincial legislature, owned and lived in the house from 1968 to 1971, during which time he became the leader of the party. He sold the house when he won a seat in northern Alberta. Grant Notley died in a plane crash in 1984. There is a park named after him in Edmonton, and it's likely that the house could get some sort of historic designation because of his ties to it. If you want to learn more about Grant Notley, check out the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Notley.  Also, he was recently voted one of the 10 Greatest Albertans.  You can find out more by going to http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/features/greatest/index.html.

Following Grant Notley's ownership, the house pretty quickly slid into a sad state, broken up into suites in response to pressures in the city to provide housing during a boom. On the street, there were times in the late 70s and early 80s where three or four or five houses on either side of the street were vacant.  The house became a rooming house with too many people living in too little space.

The 11 Dollar House™ Gets A Second Chance

Eventually, the City of Edmonton cracked down, the house was declared unfit and shut down, and languished for several years while a string of owners did little to comply with the city's requirements to fix it up. Until we came along, it could just as easily have been demolished. But now, that won't happen, and the house is going to get back to the place where (we hope) it will be the pride of the street.  Go to Rebuilding The 11 Dollar House to see the redemption process.