Fix it or flatten it? The checkered past and uncertain future of 24 Sussex Drive
Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 27, 2015 | Last Updated: November 27, 2015 8:35 PM EST
The prime minister’s unremarkable residence has never inspired widespread admiration. In fact, the current debate over its costly future mirrors closely its lukewarm inception as an official residence almost 70 years ago. But, writes Don Butler, most observers say we should keep it.
Before:
After:
If you like, you can blame Mackenzie King.
In his farewell speech to MPs in 1948, the retiring prime minister urged Parliament to provide an official residence for his successors. King had lived at Laurier House, which he owned, since 1923, and the cost to him of running and maintaining it had been heavy.
About a year later, on Sept. 30, 1949, C.D. Howe, the minister of trade and commerce, announced that “the Edwards property” would become the permanent home in Ottawa of Canada’s prime ministers.
“Canada is one of the few countries that does not have an official residence for its prime minister,” Howe told MPs. “Most of us realize the difficulty of a prime minister, coming to Ottawa for an uncertain tenure, in obtaining the type of house suitable to the high office he holds.”
The Edwards property, of course, was 24 Sussex Drive. In 1943, the government had served a notice of expropriation on its owner, Gordon Edwards, a former Ottawa MP, saying it wanted to acquire the property to guard against any possible commercialization of the Ottawa River shoreline.
That triggered a three-year legal battle that ended in 1946 with the Exchequer Court of Canada ordering the government to pay Edwards $140,000 for his house. Edwards was allowed to remain there on a monthly basis, but died later that year.
In truth, the government had no idea what to do with the house. Following Edwards’ death, it sat empty for a year, then was leased for two years to the Australian Embassy, which needed temporary office quarters.
By early 1949, however, government officials had identified 24 Sussex as the likely future prime ministerial official residence. After Canada’s leading role in the Second World War, a steady stream of important visitors was descending on Ottawa. Providing an official residence would allow the prime minister to receive them in surroundings more suitable than the Roxborough, the now-demolished apartment building at Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue where King’s successor, Louis St. Laurent, then lived.
There was little political controversy over the decision. Conservative Leader George Drew expressed satisfaction that the prime minister would “have the opportunity of carrying out his official duties and receiving official visitors in a manner more in keeping with Canada’s present position in world affairs.”
CCF Leader M.J. Coldwell said the house at 24 Sussex was “beautifully situated,” but suggested the government might consider building a new house, with modern conveniences, instead of fixing up the old place.
As it happened, the government was seriously considering precisely that. The Ottawa Journal reported in October 1949 that there was “a strong body of opinion” in cabinet that favoured tearing down the existing home. Howe and Lester Pearson, then external affairs minister, were said to be stressing the need for “something special,” given Canada’s post-war prestige on the world stage.
The editorialists at the Journal were “rather horrified” at the reported $750,000 cost of a new residence, however. What a prime minister requires, they opined, is a house that is “cozy, comfortable, reasonably secluded, with spacious rooms for receptions and dinner parties, but designed in the main for living, not for display.”
But what a prime minister would get for $750,000, the newspaper suggested, was a “cold, austere palace, a sort of art gallery with bedrooms attached” that those occupying it would detest.
In the end, the government opted to spend $410,000 to remodel the existing house, transforming its appearance in ways that made it almost unrecognizable.
St. Laurent took up residence in 1951, supposedly somewhat reluctantly, insisting on paying rent.
The rest of the story is familiar. Little has been spent on the house since then, and it has gradually decomposed to the point that alarmingly expensive repairs can no longer be avoided.
In some ways, the current discussion about 24 Sussex mirrors the debate in cabinet 66 years ago. Some, including prominent architects and at least one former resident, think it should be razed and replaced by a new building that would showcase Canadian architecture and stir national pride.
Others insist its destruction would constitute almost an act of vandalism, given the house’s connection to 10 prime ministers and Ottawa’s early timber trade. (Lumber baron Joseph Currier built it in 1868 as a wedding gift to his third wife, Hannah Wright.)
Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky, whose firm specializes in heritage conservation projects, thinks 24 Sussex should be treated as a model of conservation. “It would be a poor signal to the rest of the country if the government demolished a building that has been deemed to have historic value in its own capital.”
Historian Charlotte Gray would prefer to keep and repair the current house, as well. But, she adds, “I also know what terrible shape it’s in. If the NCC recommended that it was just too expensive to restore and should be pulled down and a really terrific architect-designed modern house built, I think that would also be acceptable.”
That would likely cost as much as or more than fixing it up, says Toon Dreessen, president of the Ontario Association of Architects. “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the bones of that house that can’t be preserved and conserved and restored,” he says.
Dreessen says Justin Trudeau should use the renovation project “to demonstrate to the world that Canada cares about its history, about its buildings and about climate change. There is a cultural memory to that house that is more than just the sum of its parts. This house means something.”
Whatever is done, it’s important to do it right, says Dreessen, who fears the government could opt for half-measures to save money. Twenty-four Sussex “is what we say on the world stage about who we are as Canadians,” he says.
“This is our 10 Downing Street. This is our White House. We’d be shocked and dismayed if either one of those properties was radically altered or allowed to decay.”
While some foreign heads of government live in grand mansions or palaces, it’s hard to find anyone who thinks that sort of opulence is appropriate for Canada’s prime minister.
Certainly the current residence is far from palatial, says Gray. “Inside, it’s not a particularly beautiful house. When they did the 1950 renovation, they stripped out all the original moulding. The spaces aren’t that big, frankly. They’re also pretty bland.”
The fact that 24 Sussex was extensively modified in 1950 means those charting its course forward are less constrained by heritage preservation concerns, says Susan Ross, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s School of Canadian Studies.
“When a (heritage) building has high integrity,” Ross says, “people tend to be battling a bit for keeping every door knob. But if the integrity isn’t as high, people are usually more open-minded about what the opportunities are.”
According to Ross, 24 Sussex doesn’t have to be a preservation project. “You can have areas where there need to be changes, there need to be removals, there need to be additions.” The goal should be to strike a balance between new elements that express the present era and preserved parts that tell the story over time, she says.
A remodelled 24 Sussex could include modern additions or changes that reflect their own time, says Dreessen, who cites the contemporary glass lantern added to the Canadian Museum of Nature’s century-old building as a prime example of what’s possible.
Many also favour turning the current energy-hog residence into a green model of sustainability – an idea first suggested by the Sierra Club of Canada.
That’s also an argument against demolishing it, says Ross. “In almost every case or rehabilitation, you’re recouping your energy and other environmental costs much quickly than if you demolish and start over.”
One idea attracting little support is transforming 24 Sussex into a working residence, similar to the White House – an option reportedly developed by the NCC.
Padolsky calls that “absolutely horrifying. It would reinforce the power of a presidential prime minister. You might as well get rid of Parliament.”
dbutler@ottawacitizen.com
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