Mayfair

The Atlas

Mayfair is a hundred and fifty-six houses between Elbow Drive and the water, and it takes about eleven minutes to walk the whole of it. The reservoir does the rest. The perimeter pathway starts at the bottom of the community and runs sixteen kilometres, and after you have walked it once you understand why nobody here mentions the size of the neighbourhood.

Grounds

Not quite three tenths of a square kilometre on the east bank of the Glenmore Reservoir, sitting at about 1,080 metres. Elbow Drive holds the east, Glenmore Trail the south, Bel-Aire the north, and the water itself the west. That western edge is the whole point of the address. It is a drinking-water reservoir with a working dam at its outflow, so the bank cannot be developed, the view cannot be built out, and a household here inherits a shoreline the city maintains at somebody else's expense. The ground falls west toward it and the streets follow the fall, curving where the bank curves and finishing rather than continuing. There is no through route, and we would list that on the front page if the front page allowed it. Traffic on Glenmore Trail and Elbow Drive passes the community without ever entering it, which is the practical consequence of having only two ways in.

The water came first here, as it did all along this bank. Mayor Andrew Davison turned the first sod on the Glenmore Dam on July 26 1930, concrete was poured that October, and the structure went into service on January 19 1933 at a cost of $3.8 million, impounding a reservoir with a surface of 3.84 square kilometres. The land above it was annexed in 1956 and Mayfair was established the following year, so the houses arrived a full generation after the shoreline they face. Everything about the layout follows from that order. The subdivision was drawn to look at something that already existed, which is a different exercise from drawing a subdivision and hoping a view appears, and the difference is visible from any front step here.

Homes

Detached houses on large lots. The 2006 census, the last full count taken on this ground, put every building in the community down as a single-family detached home with none of the housing rented. About 156 dwellings in total, which is a number small enough that a resident can hold the whole community in their head. The City files Mayfair under its 1950s structure tag and the streets bear that out, low horizontal houses from the first pour sited to the fall of the bank, with a rebuilding line that has been working through slowly for decades. The ones that work here keep the relationship to the slope and the water, because that relationship is what the lot costs. There is no apartment stock and no townhouse row, so the entry into this community is a house or nothing. Four hundred and eighty-one people live across those 156 addresses, which is a population smaller than a single Beltline tower carries and spread across ground that runs down to open water. Turnover in any given year is a handful of addresses, and a buyer waiting for the right one waits in a very short queue with very little to look at. The compensation is that the thing being waited for does not change, which is the argument we make for the wait. The bank cannot be subdivided, the water level is managed by the city, and the view from a Mayfair front window in 2050 will be the view from a Mayfair front window today.

Everyday

The reservoir carries the daily life of this address. Its perimeter pathway runs sixteen kilometres and links Heritage Park Historical Village, North Glenmore Park, Weaselhead Flats, the Glenmore Sailing Club, the Calgary Canoe Club, the Calgary Rowing Club and Earl Grey Golf Club, all reachable on foot or on a bicycle from a Mayfair driveway. The boat season runs from May 1 to October 31 and swimming is prohibited, so the water stays a working reservoir and the shoreline stays a pathway rather than a beach. The Mayfair Bel-Aire Community Association keeps no facility of its own and puts everything outdoors, running tennis courts and playfields shared with Bel-Aire to the north and flooding a rink through the winter. Groceries and every other errand point east across Elbow Drive, which we count as the address's one real cost. Schools serve the community from outside its boundary, so confirm current catchments with the Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Catholic School District.

Edges

Water west, Glenmore Trail south, Elbow Drive east, and Bel-Aire north with the golf club beyond it. Three of the four are edges that will not change, and the fourth is a residential neighbour of the same size and the same character, so a community of 156 houses has stayed a community of 156 houses for seventy years. Straight across the water, Lakeview holds the far bank and the same pathway. North up Elbow Drive past the fairways, Elboya runs the same decade at ten times the scale. The wider map sits on the full neighbourhoods index.

The Mayfair Edit

Where to start. Hours move, so check before you go.

The Glenmore Reservoir pathway
Sixteen kilometres around the water, starting at the bottom of the community.

The Mayfair Bel-Aire tennis courts
Association-run, with a flooded rink beside them once the weather turns.

We keep the listings on the neighbourhood page, updated as the market moves. Start with Mayfair homes for sale.