Feature Article

DAME ELIZA CHENIER RESIDENCES

Written By: Lawrence Herzog
Published By: Real Estate Weekly
Article © Copyright Lawrence Herzog
2007-11-01

Dame Eliza Chenier co-owned the Strathcona Hotel between 1912 and 1923, along with Joseph A. Beauchamp, and the pair also shared a duplex at 9926 and 9928 112th Street. Dame Chenier commissioned John L. Lang to design her a residence in 1910, and construction was completed in 1911.

Lang lived in another two-storey home just down the block at 9908-14 112th Street, which he had completed in 1910. Like Dame Chenier's house, it was an Edwardian influenced design, utilitarian in nature.

Now, nearly 100 years later, the city's heritage planning department is recommending that the Dame Eliza Chenier Residences be designated a Municipal Historic Resource. City council is to make a final decision later this month.

A report from the heritage planner calls the structure an excellent example of a large duplex complex from its time period. "It is symmetrical in design built in the four-square style and is clad in timber clapboard and features a hipped roof with bellcast features," the report says.

Dame Chenier acquired her building permit on May 25th, 1910, and the estimated cost was $7,000. She hired a gentleman named Hardy as builder, although there are indications Mr. Lang may also have played a part in the construction.

The residence was constructed of timber using the balloon framing method, with supporting walls framed at 16-inch intervals by two-by-four wood beams atop floors supported by two-by-10 wooden joists.

The dominant feature at the front is a large full length porch at ground level and a smaller porch above with a gabled ended roof. The porches are supported by simple flared columns supporting a solid entablature and boxed eaves.

"The lower porch is enclosed on the side portions with timber clapboard and those above have rails," the report observes. "A central dormer on the roof has a hipped roof and double windows with decorative panes and is clad in clapboard with a boxed eave."

The two sides of the duplex mirror the other and, on the ground floor, each has timber panelled front doors with small nine-pane windows on the side. Large double hung timber windows frame the porch on either side. The upper balcony has doors which match those below, along with paired corner windows.

"The south elevation matches the north, and both are clad in clapboard with the flare above the corniced belt course separating the two levels," the report says. "The upper level has three sash windows (one over one) one sitting close to the front corner and the lower level with two sash windows (two over two) and a multipaned picture window. All openings feature wide wooden casing with decorative crowns."

A flat belt course separates the brick foundation from the main floor level. A timber chimney with corbelled capping projects from the roof line above. The eaves are boxed with a simple frieze board.

The facade at the rear of the structure matches the other sides. "The notable feature is the flat roof addition at the ground level," the report says. "The roof was originally used as a balcony with exiting timber doors onto it." The interior features pocket doors, wood panelling, wide baseboards and frames and a glass panelled access to the roof above the stairs.

Dame Chenier lived in the north side duplex at 9928 from 1911 through 1926. The other side was originally occupied by Beauchamp, and he resided there until 1919.

Beauchamp built the first hotel in Fort Saskatchewan in 1901 and then later bought the Windsor Hotel on the southwest corner of Jasper Avenue and 101st Street. It later became the Selkirk Hotel, and was demolished after a fire in 1961. A replica of the Selkirk is now at Fort Edmonton Park.

From 1924 until his death in 1949, Beauchamp was a co-owner and manager of the Cecil Hotel on the northwest corner of Jasper Avenue and 104th Street. He was active for more than 25 years in the Knights of Columbus and was named a life member of the Alberta Pioneers" and Old Timers" Association and the Alberta Hotel Association.

The City of Edmonton has owned the residence and the houses adjacent on the block for more than 40 years. It bought the 112th Street houses at 9908 through 9918 and 9926 through 9936 after a plan to twin the High Level Bridge was hatched in the early 1960s.

Saner heads prevailed, the High Level never did its twin, and the houses were spared. But four years ago, when local resident Shirleen Smith heard the four houses were going to be sold as a package and potentially turned into a high-rise condominium, she launched a research project to prove their worth.

She began assembling historical documentation to convince the city that the houses, built between 1908 and 1911, are historic treasures " not brick and wooden relics that should be bulldozed to make way for more vertical people warehouses. Her diligent research and the work of the Oliver History Committee has helped save these significant structures.

The heritage planner's report notes that the Dame Eliza Chenier Residences building is in original condition and has a high degree of historical integrity. The structure is also a rare surviving example of the original middle-class and working-class houses that were built in the Oliver neighbourhood early in the 20th century.

"The houses on this street form one of the few remaining contiguous streetscapes of older homes in Oliver, along with the adjoining heritage homes from the same era on 99 Avenue," the report says.