Description of Historic Place

The impressive Rodmond Roblin House, a brick farmhouse built in 1912, occupies a large sheltered yard in the Carman area. The Edwardian-style dwelling is set among flat open fields on Highway 3 in one of southern Manitoba's fertile agricultural districts. The site's municipal designation applies to the house and the lands on which it sits.

Heritage Value

The Rodmond Roblin House has significant connections to Sir Rodmond Palen Roblin, Manitoba's premier from 1900 to 1915 and one of the most prominent figures in matters of agriculture and transportation during the province's formative period. The land that the house is located on was acquired by Roblin in 1877 during his early years in the Carman district as a farmer, grain buyer and merchant, and later became the site of the family home and farmstead. The 1912 dwelling, which replaced an 1889 log house, was built in part by members of the family and is an important example of a building type popular between 1900 and 1930. Edwardian in style, the 2½-storey structure illustrates the level of sophistication reached in the development of larger houses in rural southern Manitoba by the 1910s.

Source: Rural Municipality of Dufferin By-law No. 1761, May 26, 2003

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the site include:
- placement of the house on the large grassed and treed farm site with the front facing west

Key elements that define the Edwardian-style exterior of the Rodmond Roblin House, as designed for the then provincial premier, include:
- the simplified but formal composition of the house, including its rectangular shape, balanced front facade, hipped roof with three plain dormers, plain eaves, tall plain chimney and generous fenestration
- the basic materials, finishes and details, including the limestone foundation, buff-coloured brick walls with contrasting dark-painted trim, rectangular-shaped windows with arched brick lintels and stone sills, the shallow oriel window at the front, the east-side parapet gable with stone trim and casement windows, etc.

Key internal elements that define the heritage character of the house, as occupied by members of the Roblin family for four decades, include:
- the integrity of the unaltered spaces organized around a central-hall plan, including large dining and living rooms and a parlour and kitchen of the main floor, all with 2.75-metre ceilings; the back stairwell off the kitchen; second-floor bedrooms with large doorways, clear glass transom windows, fir floors and 2.75-metre ceilings; and bedrooms in the attic
- the fine craftsmanship of the clear fir woodwork throughout; the oak hardwood floors on the main floor; the custom woodwork and cabinetry in the living room, parlour, dining room and bedrooms; the two living room doors with frosted glass; the small recessed space in the parlour designed to accommodate coffins; etc.