"230 Ogilvy Charles"

 Well here's an unexpected find. I was glancing over the listings for Lisgar Street in the 1901 Might Directory (my idea of fun, haha!) and this entry caught my eye — "230 Ogilvy Charles" — no comma, no other notation. Could it be?

 Born in Edinburgh in 1861, Charles Ogilvy came to Canada with his family two years later. He opened his first dry-goods store in 1887, at 92 Rideau Street. In 1907 he moved shop to 126 Rideau, into a building designed by the noted Ottawa architect W.E. Noffke and his partner George William Northwood. Charles Ogilvy Ltd. (or simply "Ogilvy's") grew in physical size, number of outlets, and reputation through the first half of the 20th century.

 A fire at the flagship store in the dying days of 1969 marked the beginning of a slow decline for the business. Simpson's, Eaton's and The Bay proved overwhelming competition for a store  renowned for its well-made but timelessly unexciting fashions. Ogilvy's  closed in the '90s, and sat empty for years thereafter. In 2013 the building was carefully demolished pending the reconstruction of its facade as part of an expanded Rideau Centre.

...le temple qui fut, April 2013

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deuxième vue, April 2013

 And what does this have to do with 230 Lisgar Street? Was "Ogilvy Charles" the local retail legend or just some dude with the same name? A bit of nosing around vindicates the former.

Charles Ogilvy, 1901

 In 1901, "230 Ogilvy Charles" was still eight years away from opening his resplendent temple of retail at the corner of Rideau and Nicholas. Here are a few lead-up dates for the house on Lisgar...

1884 — Charles Ogilvy, a clerk, is boarding at 80 Albert St.
1887 — Charles opens his first dry-goods store.
1888 — 230 Lisgar appears on the Goad map as a perfunctory, 2½ storey brick building, a narrow house on a narrow lot, with the usual summer kitchen out back. See image below.
1892-'93 — Miss Florence Benson of 230 Lisgar is teaching voice and piano, "concert engagements accepted." She will eventually marry, move to Montreal and sing in a church choir.
1897-1901 — Newspapers and the Might Directory confirm Charles as residing at 230 Lisgar, indeed owner of the namesake store. The Ottawa Journal further confirms a Mrs. Ogilvy [Lily Allison] again as of 1897, active with the King's Daughters and Sons, a Christian philanthropic organization.

230 Lisgar appears as the right-most of six similar houses, upper half of image.

 During his Lisgar Street tenure,  Charles was operating his store out of its old location at 92 Rideau.

 The Ogilvys eventually quit this austere little house for another in Sandy Hill — just as plain, but closer to the store. #201 Wilbrod (white house, middle of image) has sat empty, its doors and windows boarded for about a decade now.

 Back in Centretown, the Faloon family operated a boarding house at 230 Lisgar from the 1930s into WWII. In 1935 a visitor from Denver Colorado mistook a door at the top of the rear stairs for a washroom. She fell to her death, breaking her neck and smashing her skull. On March 26 1940 the house served as a polling station in that year's Federal Election — the Liberals won.

 The building has since been split into two apartments. I can't pin down the date of the strange brick extension at the front of the building — I'm sure it seemed like a good an idea at the time.

 For those interested, there is a Facebook page devoted to Charles Ogilvy Ltd. Ken Elder has written a terrific little history of the store, pdf here. Oh, and Andrew Elliott has an awesome appreciation here (be sure to click on his links!)

 The Ogilvys spent their final years in a lovely house at 488 Edison Avenue just west of Churchill Avenue.

 

the Ottawa Journal

the Ottawa journal, Jan. 19 1944

Requiescant in pace.