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Wallis House is a prominent landmark building in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the corner of Rideau Street and Charlotte Street. Today, after restoration, the building serves as a deluxe condominium complex.
Originally built to house the Carleton County Protestant General Hospital (This is not the Ottawa General that went from Sussex and Water to Smyth Road, now known as the Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital on Bruyere Street), this was the second hospital in the city, after the Catholic hospital run by the Grey Nuns. The hospital's first building was completed in 1851, but had become too small and Wallis House was built to replace it between 1873 and 1876. It was paid for and supported by the various Protestant churches in the area. The east wing was added to the hospital between 1887 and 1898. It remained a hospital until 1924, when it was merged with two others to create the Ottawa Civic Hospital.
The building served as a Catholic seminary until 1943, when the military took it over and used it to house members of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service during the Second World War. The navy gave it the name Wallis House, after Provo Wallis, a hero of the War of 1812, who later rose to be an admiral in the Royal Navy.
After the war, it was left empty, leading to protests from returning veterans who faced a housing crisis. In 1946, a group of veterans and squatters occupied the building until they were forced out by the Governor General's Foot Guards. The event drew enough attention that Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King mandated that it be turned into subsidized housing.
In 1950, the military reoccupied the structure and it served a number of purposes over the next decades, eventually becoming the home of 28 Service battalion, 763 Communications Regiment (formerly 3 Signals Regiment RC Signals) and several minor Army reserve units. The aged building soon became a problem. Constant minor renovations left the interior a warren of hallways and rooms. The military inspectors also considered it to be a dangerous fire trap. There were problems with asbestos and PCBs that would require an expensive clean-up effort. It was thus abandoned by the armed forces and boarded up.
It remained vacant for several years and was threatened with demolition. This led to a number of squabbles. The city wanted the federal government to do something about the dangerous structure in the centre of town, heritage and veterans' groups protested the demolition, and the Government could find no one interested in buying the site. A number of proposals were advanced, perhaps the most unlikely was when the commission on the prostitution problem in the city proposed turning the building into a city run and regulated brothel.
The debate was finally resolved in May 1994 when L.A Sandy Smallwood, a heritage restorer, bought the structure for $320,000 and promised to restore it. Wallis House was turned into 47 high-end condominiums. The parking lot behind the building was converted into a group of town houses, while the land to the east was set aside for an apartment building. When the Wallis House condos went on sale in October 1995, they were all sold in fewer than twenty-four hours. This unprecedented event was the beginning of a long-lasting real estate boom in Ottawa.
The City of Ottawa erected brass plaques, which were unveiled in 1990 and 1997. The memorial is dedicated to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo William Perry Wallis, GCB (1791-1892), from Halifax, Nova Scotia. [1]
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo William Parry Wallis, was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer, following the capture of USS Chesapeake by the frigate HMS Shannon during the War of 1812, the wounding of HMS Shannon's captain and the death of her first lieutenant in the action, he served as the temporary captain of HMS Shannon as she returned to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Chesapeake.
Riverview is a neighbourhood in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is southeast of the downtown adjacent to the Rideau River, its location on which is its namesake. The 2021 Census population of Riverview is 13,113.
Vimy House was a warehouse in the Centretown West neighbourhood of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada that was used to store the collections of the Canadian War Museum from 1983 to 2004. The building, originally known as Champagne Garage was built to house the streetcars of the Ottawa Electric Railway. After the railway's closure in 1959, the Ottawa Transportation Commission used the warehouse for storing their buses up until 1979. The building was later acquired by the Canadian War Museum to be used as a storage facility for its collections when its Sussex Drive facility ran out of space. The building, later renamed Vimy House, became filled with a vast array of aged military paraphernalia including the world's largest collection of Canadian war art. While items from the Vimy House collection would occasionally be put on display at the museum itself, the public could also visit Vimy House on special open house days and tour its collection. The last open house was held on September 6, 2003.
Bytown is the former name of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded on September 26, 1826, incorporated as a town on January 1, 1850, and superseded by the incorporation of the City of Ottawa on January 1, 1855. The founding was marked by a sod turning, and a letter from Governor General Dalhousie which authorized Lieutenant Colonel John By to divide up the town into lots. Bytown came about as a result of the construction of the Rideau Canal and grew largely due to the Ottawa River timber trade. Bytown's first mayor was John Scott, elected in 1847.
The National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was established on March 3, 1865, in the United States by Congress to provide care for volunteer soldiers who had been disabled through loss of limb, wounds, disease, or injury during service in the Union forces in the American Civil War. Initially, the Asylum, later called the Home, was planned to have three branches: in the Northeast, in the central area north of the Ohio River, and in what was then considered the Northwest, the present upper Midwest.
The current Ottawa City Hall is the city hall of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The downtown complex consists of two connected buildings: a modern wing located on Laurier Avenue and a 19th-century heritage wing located on Elgin Street. Although City Hall has frontage on two major streets, the main entrance is on Laurier Avenue, and the municipal address is 110 Laurier Avenue West.
Francis Conroy Sullivan was a Canadian architect.
Stittsville is a suburban community, part of the Canadian capital of Ottawa, Ontario. It is within the former Goulbourn Township. A part of the National Capital Region, Stittsville is immediately to the southwest of Kanata, adjacent to Richmond and about 20 km (12 mi) west of Downtown Ottawa. The urban part of the community corresponds to Stittsville Ward on Ottawa City Council and has been represented by Glen Gower since 2018. As of 2021, Stittsville ward had a population of 40,889.
The Heritage Building is today part of Ottawa City Hall. It was originally built in 1874 as Ottawa Normal School and served as a teacher's college. The Gothic Revival building stands at Elgin Street and Lisgar and several extensions were added to the rear of the building.
Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax is Canada's east coast naval base and home port to the Royal Canadian Navy Atlantic fleet, known as Canadian Fleet Atlantic (CANFLTLANT), that forms part of the formation Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT).
Christ Church Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The church is located at 414 Sparks Street in the northwest section of the city's downtown at the western end of Sparks Street on top of a promontory looking down to the Ottawa River.
LeBreton Flats known colloquially as The Flats is a neighbourhood in Somerset Ward in central Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It lies to the west of Centretown neighbourhood, and to the north of Centretown West. The Ottawa River forms the western and northern limit, with the western side being a wider area of the river known as Nepean Bay.
Élisabeth Bruyère was the founder of the Sisters of Charity of Bytown and opened the first hospital there and the first bilingual school in Ontario.
The Central Post Office is a historic building in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The building was completed in 1939, replacing a Second Empire style office built in 1876. This original office was located in what is today Confederation Square, and was demolished in order to construct the grand public space. The new office was designed by W.E. Noffke, it is located on the western edge of the square at the end of Sparks Street. The new site required the demolition of the Royal Bank of Canada building. The office combines the distinctly Canadian Chateauesque style with Art Deco elements. It is noted for the decorative carved lions arranged around its base.
Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe is a former Canadian Forces Base located in the eastern part of Ottawa, Ontario, now used for Ottawa/Rockcliffe Airport and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.
National Park Seminary — later called National Park College — was a private girls' school open from 1894 to 1942. Located in Forest Glen Park, Maryland, its name alludes to nearby Rock Creek Park. The historic campus is to be preserved as the center of a new housing development.
The architecture of Toronto is an eclectic combination of architectural styles, ranging from 19th century Georgian architecture to 21st century postmodern architecture and beyond.
Overdale was a small residential district in downtown Montreal that became a famous symbol of the struggle between urban conservationists and land developers.
Hotels in Toronto have been some of the most prominent buildings in the city and the hotel industry is one of the city's most important. The Greater Toronto Area has 183 hotels with a total of almost 36,000 rooms. In 2010, there were 8.9 million room nights sold. Toronto is a popular tourist destination, with it having the 6th highest room occupancy rate in North America, but about two thirds of rooms are taken by commercial, government, or convention travellers.
Beechwood Cemetery is the national cemetery of Canada, located in Vanier, Ottawa, Ontario. Over 82,000 Canadians from all walks of life are buried in the cemetery, including Governor General Ramon Hnatyshyn, Prime Minister Robert Borden, and several members of Parliament, premiers, Canadian Armed Forces personnel and veterans, Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel, Canadian Security Intelligence Service intelligence officers, and Hockey Hall of Famers, alongside other notable Canadians. In addition to being Canada's national cemetery, it is also the national military cemetery of Canada and the national memorial cemetery of the RCMP.