William Ashdown House
121 Kate Street
During the last three decades of the 1800s, urban development
in Winnipeg was marked by the outward spread of new residential
areas, both to accommodate population growth and to replace
housing lost to commercial and industrial land uses in the
expanding central business district.
One such early residential area was established between Notre
Dame and William avenues, west of Main Street and north of
the Hudson's Bay Reserve. This area included a series of Streets
carrying the names of women in alphabetical order.
In 1882, William S. Ashdown, a brother of hardware magnate
James H. Ashdown built a two-storey, brick veneer house as
121 Kate Street between William and Bannatyne avenues. His
backyard was shared with 120 Juno Street, also erected in
1882, by another Ashdown brother, George.
The eight-room house is a reduced, unadorned example of the
Queen Anne style common in North America from the 1880s through
to the early 1900s. This style, popularized by a group of
English architects led by Richard Norman Shaw, was based on
late medieval models from the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
Built for $5,000, the house rests on a cut-stone foundation.
Its cream-coloured brick veneer is laid in a stretcher pattern
with raised brick quoins proving one of the building's few
decorative elements. Consistent with the Queen Anne style,
the roof is irregular and steeply pitched with both gable
and hip ends. The original structure included a partial porch
used as an entrance; this later was replaced with concrete
steps.
The asymmetrical façade features a one-storey bay
window under the gable. All windows have wooden sills, plain
surrounds and radiating brick heads.
There are four bedrooms on the upper floor of the house.
Consistent with the period, the rooms are relatively small.
Wooden accents around doorways, and a wooden banister provide
modest interior highlights.
Relatively little is known of William Ashdown compared to
his brothers: James, a prominent merchant and mayor of Winnipeg,
and George, a member of the provincial legislature and mayor
of Morden. It appears William also worked as a bookkeeper
for the Ashdown Hardware Store.
William has moved to Ross Avenue by 1885, then to Arthur
Street by 1890. He subsequently lived with James in his home
at Broadway and Hargrave Street.
William apparently retained ownership of 121 Kate Street
until 1893, renting the premises to various tenants. The new
owners, Israel and Anna L. Bennetto, remained until 1915.
The house subsequently changed hands several more times and
was used for a period as a rental property. Erik O. Moberg,
a carpenter, and his family were the longest-standing property
occupants of the house.
* from the years past, report of the Winnipeg Historical
Buildings Committee.
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