510 Cooper Street

 When Ottawa was first being built, corner lots seem to have been all the rage with the monied sort — how better to see and being seen? Corner-hugging verandahs were common on houses that faced two streets at once. Charles Goad (insurance maps) confirms that #510 was indeed the first house built on this lot. It dates to some time between 1889 and 1900.

This late-Victorian design is solidly massed, but asymmetric to the bitter end of Empire. The owner-builder was likely William J. Campbell. He would have had a five minute walk to work in the morning — the 1901 Might Directory lists...

CAMPBELL WM J, Manufacturer of

Boilers, Tanks and Bridge Work

478-482 Maria [Laurier W],

res 510 Cooper

A detail from an 1888 Goad map shows W.J. Campbell & Co. Engineering straddling block 263 (sheet 42). The multiple tent-like marks on grey indicate skylights. A year after the above was published, there was a fire.

Ottawa Journal, July 20 1889

"All the patterns... were destroyed and will be hard to replace" — now that, I'm sure, was brutal.

I have not found an obituary that would neatly summarize Mr. Campbell's life, but I'll keep an eye open.