The Beaumont neighborhood home of builder Edward R. McLean, built by McLean in 1925. He and his family lived here until 1953. During his career, McLean built more 100 homes across Portland’s eastside.

Edward R. McLean was a prolific homebuilder who worked all across Portland’s eastside neighborhoods and built more than 100 homes during his almost 50-year career. McLean was 27 years old when he first arrived in Portland in 1920, traveling from his native Margaree Harbor, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. His father John C. McLean, a farmer, was an immigrant from Scotland; his mother died when he and his siblings were young. Edward dropped out of high school after two years and by age 17 in 1911 when the Canadian federal census was taken, he was working in a local coal mine. By 1915 McLean had followed his sister to Winnipeg, Manitoba and was working there as a carpenter. In 1920, he drove south on an exploratory trip, crossing into the US in Blaine, Washington, bound for Los Angeles looking for work and carrying his life savings of $400.

Along the way, he must have stopped long enough in Portland to get a sense for the place. After his 1920 visit, McLean returned north (sailing on a passenger ship up the coast to Victoria, British Columbia) to carpentry work in Canada, living briefly in Denzil, Saskatchewan. He returned to Portland—this time for good—in February 1922, and moved into an apartment on the second floor at 121 ½ Grand Avenue (today’s 705 SE Grand, interestingly the Architectural Heritage Center headquarters). Portland home construction was booming during the early 1920s, and McLean wouldn’t have had a problem finding a carpentry job.

McLean likely worked for a home builder during his first year in Portland, but by October 1923 he was out on his own as E.R. McLean, Building Contractor. The first home he built—in November 1923—is at 3707 NE 21st Avenue. The next handful of homes—built in early 1924—are also in the immediate vicinity. In 1925, he embarked on a batch of homes in the vicinity of NE 44th and Siskiyou, and he and his wife Selena settled into one of them.

Included below is a list of more than 90 homes that McLean built during his career. While researching McLean and his homes, I found no evidence about the exact source of designs and plans for the homes he built. It was standard practice at the time to utilize a standing base set of plans that could be customized for the lot, the customer/buyer. Plan providers like the Universal Plan Service and the Telegram Plan Book—both located in Portland—include homes with similar features. It’s likely McLean used plan sets like these, combined with adaptation based on his experience and the desires of his clients, as the basis for his work.

Fourteen years after moving into the house, Edward and Selena’s first son Robert Edward McLean was born. Six years later in 1945, brother Alan Richard McLean was born. Both brothers attended Beaumont School, but attended high school in southwest Portland (Lincoln and Wilson, respectively) after the family had left the house.

While multiple declarations of intention exist regarding Edward’s renunciation of allegiance to any foreign government—usually the first step in an immigration and naturalization process—no actual naturalization was found. Sometime between 1922 and 1927, he changed his middle name from Richard to Ross. Subsequent census and travel documents referred to him as Canadian of Scotch descent.

The 1940 census notes that living with and working for the McLeans was 20-year-old Wilhelmina Krause, listed as a maid, from Herington, Kansas. Wilhelmina “Billie” was one of nine children. In 1941 she married Ludwig Stanwood and moved out of the house. She later married Delbert Stevens and lived most of her life in Gresham, dying in 2004 at age 84.

From The Oregonian, May 2, 1954

The McLean family lived in the house until 1953, when they moved to another home built by Edward at 4328 NE 79th Avenue. Two years later, they moved to 7114 SW 8th Avenue, which he built in 1953.

Edward died on September 5th, 1983 at age 89. Selena died July 19, 2001 at age 98.

From The Oregonian, September 7, 1983

What follows is a listing of known homes built by Edward R. McLean, compiled from a review of building permit notices in The Oregonian between 1923-1964.