There were never any indoor toilets on the Edel site. The outhouse survives at the end of the walk on the west side of the site. The Shelter House was built on State Historical Society property by the City of Haverhill in 1986. The State Historical Society uses the shelter house rest room facilities which are open to all visitors to the site. The shelter house is used for city business and is rented to individuals and groups.
Family members tell of huge gardens to the north of the buildings.
The produce from the gardens and grapevines was canned and bottled and stored in the basement cellars. Matthew Edel was born in 1856 in or near Stuttgart in the southern part of what is now Germany. Matthew emigrated to the United State with his family in the late 1860s or early 1870s. They settled in Effingham in central Illinois. The date of emigration makes some difference to our understanding of how Matthew trained to be a blacksmith.