The Major John Stewart House at 26 New Street SE in Inglewood was completed in 1885, which makes it one of the earliest surviving residences in Alberta. The architect was Robert Moberly. The house predates the sandstone wave that built Stephen Avenue, and it stands on the edge of the Bow River.
The man behind the house
The Canadian Register of Historic Places ties the house to Major John Stewart, best known for founding the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer militia formed after the 1885 North-West Rebellion.
A Gothic Cottage with a wrap-around verandah
The register describes a one-and-a-half-storey residence in the Gothic Cottage style, with a steep, complex roofline, decorative trim, dormers and a wrap-around verandah. It is a house of modest size that still carries ornament, which suited a family of means in a frontier town.
Inglewood kept its early houses
Inglewood was the original commercial centre of Calgary, anchored on Fort Calgary and the Bow River crossing. Once commercial energy moved north toward 9 Avenue, the old neighbourhood was bypassed rather than redeveloped, and some of its early residences survived because of that.
The province designated it in 1977
Alberta designated the house a Provincial Historic Resource on November 29, 1977, and it was listed on the Canadian Register on March 29, 2006.
Why a small house matters
Most surviving 1880s architecture in Calgary is commercial sandstone. A wood residence from 1885 shows what a working household looked like in the town before the boom. A walk through Inglewood is the easiest way to see how much of that earlier town is still standing.
Correction. An earlier version called Moberly a Calgary architect, described the house as two storeys and attributed details of Stewart’s earlier career that the register does not support. The register describes a Winnipeg architect and a one-and-a-half-storey house.
Related reading from the series. The Hunt House and the oldest building still standing in downtown Calgary. Stephen Avenue and how Calgary built its sandstone spine.
