Rare century-old home for sale offers glimpse of downtown Edmonton's past
Madeleine Cummings | CBC News | Posted: October 6, 2019 10:00 AM | Last Updated: October 6, 2019
After nearly 70 years, owner says it’s ‘time to let go’
A week after Susanne Martin was born in 1952, her parents bought an old house for $14,000 in downtown Edmonton.
They couldn't really afford it, so they brought in renters and set up a shared kitchenette on the second floor. The family of four slept in the same room on the main floor, with baby Susanne's crib pushed up against the fireplace.
When she guided her blind father Walter Sorenson down Jasper Avenue, they knew the owners and clerks in each store. Her father could recognize everyone by their voices.
Decades have passed since then, with condo towers and office buildings replacing the large brick homes that used to make up the neighbourhood.
But little has changed inside the house on the corner of 106th Street and 99th Avenue, which features brick fireplaces, antique pictures and a chirping clock that delighted Martin's father in his last years.
The future of this three bedroom house — one of the last single-family homes in downtown Edmonton — has been in question since Martin put it up for sale recently. (The list price is $1.1 million). Her children don't live in the city anymore and Martin, 67, is looking to downsize.
"I have roots that are as big as some of these trees outside," she said over tea. "It's time for me to clean up my act and not leave it for my kids to clean up."
Listen to an audio house tour that aired on CBC's Radio Active:
As a girl, Martin attended McKay Avenue School, now the oldest standing brick school in the province, before zones were redrawn and she was sent to school across the river.
She moved in and out of the house a few times before getting married at 25 and living in Lethbridge for five years.
After she and her husband split up, she moved back to Edmonton, where she raised her two sons. After they grew up, she moved back home to look after her father for the last three years of his life.
Most of the furniture in the house came from Martin's family members — like the piano her mother bought for her husband with her wartime pension and the table her grandmother brought over from England.
Pieces have moved between rooms, carpets have come and gone, but everything else has stayed the same.
Edmonton's changing downtown
As a girl, Martin was surrounded by families living in large homes with big verandas. That started to change in the 1960s, she recalled.
According to the City of Edmonton's demographic profile, only about 30 per cent of downtown dwellers own their homes; the rest rent.
Of downtown's 6,705 residential units in 2011, just 10 were single-detached homes. In the core of the city, almost everyone lives in apartment or condo buildings.
Martin runs into neighbours all the time while she walks her dogs, but admits the area has completely changed since she was a girl.
"This was a community, and now it's just a conglomeration of people and highrises," she said.
Kristopher Heuven, the real estate agent who listed the property, said he suspects it will be bought by a developer or turned into office space for a law or accounting firm.
Over the years, many developers and real estate agents have expressed interest in the house, asking Martin to call if she decides to sell.
She's been calling those people back, but said imagining the house being torn down breaks her heart.
"I would love to sell to a family, or someone who is going to keep the house," she said. "But at this stage of my life, I have to be realistic.
"Nothing lasts forever. Time to let go."