Dr. Minish Residence

11222 123 Street NW, Edmonton

Description of Historic Place

The Dr. Minish Residence, built in 1932, is a single storey clinker brick home with an intersecting gable roof and an “L” shaped footprint. It is located on a residential street and occupies a single city lot in Edmonton’s mature Inglewood neighbourhood. The municipal designation includes the exterior elevations and the interior wooden trim and mouldings: the remaining interior features are considered non-contributing elements.

Heritage Value

The Dr. Minish Residence is significant for its use of clinker brick and as a type of infill development in the community of Inglewood.

The Dr. Minish Residence is valued due to its association with modest inter-war infill residential development in the community of Inglewood. The Dr. Minish Residence was built in 1932 and is representative of interwar residential infill homes in Inglewood because of its modest size, the use of wood frame construction with brick cladding and simple inexpensive detailing, and the presence of wooden windows and interior trim and moulding. These homes were popular at the time because the modest detailing, in this case the brickwork and decorative parging on the foundation, gave the home a modicum of style which afforded the owner a sense of pride and respectability, while the small size made them affordable and easy to heat in the winter. Built during the twenty year period between the World Wars, the Dr. Minish Residence is valued as a type of residential infill development in Inglewood, a community in which the majority of the development has occurred since the end of the Second World War.

The Dr. Minish Residence is significant for its use of clinker brick. Clinker bricks were originally discarded as waste material unsuitable for construction because they were over-fired, burnt, and misshapen. Builders in Edmonton began to use clinker bricks as early as 1913. The firing process gives every clinker brick a slightly different colour and texture. As a result, every clinker brick structure, including the Dr. Minish Residence, is provided a unique appearance. The continued presence of clinker brick structures like the Dr. Minish Residence are important in preserving one of Edmonton’s few regional construction materials.

Source: City of Edmonton Planning and Development Department POSSE File 68666693.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Dr. Minish Residence is expressed in such character-defining elements as:

• use of clinker brick as the cladding material for the exterior walls;
• clinker brick chimney;
• the clinker brick solider courses that runs across the gables to interrupt the basic stretcher bond;
• the clinker brick soldier courses serving as lintels and the projecting clinker bricks used as window sills;
• exposed rafter tails with the prominent bargeboards/ fascia boards having diagonal cut ends;
• tongue and groove timber sheathing in the eaves;
• the simple parged relief patterns to look like stone over the concrete foundation;
• the main windows are single hung timber sash windows in tripartite groupings, two of which are on the east elevation and one on the south. The south elevation also has a single sash window of the same height. The north elevation has a single sash window and a picture window;
• timber front door in the L shape facing south onto the front porch; and
• interior trim and mouldings. 

Context

Development in Inglewood first began in the early 1900s, when due to a lack of planning restrictions developers constructed as many buildings per lot as possible. This proved to be a prelude to the area’s first great spurt of development which occurred during the great land boom of 1911-13. Taking advantage of the expanding market for houses in Edmonton, developers began to erect a large number of homes on speculation east of 127 Street in the communities of Inglewood, Westmount and Groat Estate. Inglewood attracted civil servants, railway workers and tradesmen, whereas developers in Westmount aimed at attracting young professionals to the neighbourhood, and the more wealthy and established professionals tended to gravitate to Groat Estate. This contrast was also evident in the types of homes built, with residences in Inglewood being far more modest than either Westmount of Groat Estate. Westmount was better served by the trams, two of which ended at 112 Avenue, and one that went up 124 Street through to Calder, which might explain why most of Inglewood’s older properties, including the Dr. Minish Residence, are located at its southern boundaries.

Dr. Nathaniel James Minish resided in the home from 1942 until 1967. Nathanial Minish studied medicine at the University of Alberta from 1914 to 1917 before receiving his M.D. from the University of Manitoba in 1920. Dr. Minish returned to Edmonton in 1922 where he operated a private practice in Edmonton and was known as a teacher of anatomy at the University of Alberta until his retirement in 1950.

Data Source: POSSE File 68666693 City of Edmonton Planning and Development Department 10250 - 101 Street Edmonton AB T5J 3P4

Designation & Awards

Municipal Historic Resource (November 26, 2010)

Era: The War Years
Themes: Homes
Cultural Groups:
Area: Northwest

Dr. Minish Residence, 2006

Dr. Minish Residence, 2006

Dr. Minish Residence, 2006

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