This brick Foursquare style house in Strathcona belonged to Margaret Martin and is an important historical touchstone in the community.
One of the first houses to be built in Strathcona, this 1907 home was designed in the Foursquare style and features symmetry, generous proportions and simple detailing. Unusual for Edmonton Foursquares, the house has a red brick exterior and a wraparound open verandah on the east and north elevations. The roof is hipped with large overhanging eaves and palladium (arched) dormer windows.
In 1899, Margaret Martin, her husband David, and their eleven children set off from North Dakota to settle in the Canadian northwest. They acquired 320 acres of farm land west of the town of Strathcona. Unfortunately David died one year later of pneumonia. The farm was then subdivided and became known as the Martin Estates. The house was designed by the architectural firm of Magoon, Hopkins and James, later becoming Magoon and MacDonald Associates. Margaret continued to reside in the house until 1939, and she died in 1940. Her farmland is now part of the neighbourhoods of Allendale and Pleasantview.
Some of the eleven children left their own mark on Edmonton's history. Grace Martin became a teacher and married Donald C. McEachern. She lived to be 108 years old, many of which she worked for the church and school in her community. In 1972, she was honoured by having a school named after her. Helen Martin married Cecil Rutherford, a lawyer, and the only son of Alberta's first premier A. C. Rutherford. David Quincy Martin married Lova Shaw, daughter of H. V. Shaw, the proprietor of the Edmonton Cigar Factory. After serving in France during the Great War, he worked for over thirty years with the Alberta Liquor Control Board.