This six-unit building on Cooper is an example of an older secondary build in Centretown.
Goad's 1888 map depicts 480-482 as a vacant lot. According to the Ottawa Journal, it was still empty in the fall of 1905, when the rest of the block was filled in.
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| September 30 1905 |
Mr. Bangs' name rarely made the news and that, I'd like to think, was good news. The Might Directories listed him as a foreman with the Mortimer Company, a printing firm of long standing that had recently built a new shop on Wellington Street — this, where the storied Cecil Hotel had lately burned down.
Mr. Bangs built a two-and-a-half-storey double (much like the pair still standing directly to the west of the property) and moved into one of the units, #480. I'll assume he rented out #482 as an income property. Goad (1912) shows brick-on-wood-construction.
Scarcely a decade later, Louis De Vere Bangs converted his duplex into an apartment block and named it after himself. The De Vere Apartments debuted in pages of the 1914 Might Directory with all six units already rented. It's likely that Bangs rebuilt on the foundation of his original duplex — the apartments were erected on limestone blocks at a time when poured concrete was becoming popular.
Mr. Bangs did not take a flat at the De Vere. He moved to 18 Glen Avenue (still standing), a cosy two-and-a-half single in Old Ottawa South.
