The Balmoral, The Sandringham

Leafless trees in this photo from November 2015 reveal Homestead's "Balmoral" apartments (99 Range Road, center) as construction nears completion. To the right of the image, the older "Sandringham" (85 Range, Peter Dickinson, completed 1958) overlooks Strathcona Park. The view is, of course, from the east shore of the Rideau River, looking across the water.

Both buildings sit on a terrace of Champlain Sea sediment, in turn surmounting the limestone bedrock of the Eastview Formation. This latter substrate is easily seen (indeed walked across) in mid to late summer, when low water levels expose the Rideau River's rocky bottom. The Sandringham's siting on this plateau adds a certain grandeur to the older building's modest ten storeys.

The conceit here is of two similar towers set side-by-side, both named for British Royal residences — Edward VII's Jacobethan Sandringham House in Norfolk, and the rebuilt (by Prince Albert) baronial castle at Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Posed as if peas from the same royally decreed pod, the two blocks were actually built almost sixty years apart.

I'm not going to argue that the Balmoral is a dreadful piece of infill. Neither its height nor its style are unreasonable. Still, it's a nasty kick in the teeth for anyone who once enjoyed an unobstructed view from the south side of the Sandringham. A screen-grab from an old Google Street View shows the site before work on the Balmoral began — check out that glorious morning sun...

This layout plan gives us an idea of how the present juxtaposition came to be. The "T" arrangement inevitably favours the sight-lines of one building over the other. In this case, the Balmoral is the winner.

Sadly, the Sandringham's space-age "Googie" porte-cochère (left, below) was removed during construction of the Balmoral. I don't think we'll be seeing it again.

[Later] Said swoopy appendage has been replaced with a classical-minimalist concrete affair matching that of the Balmoral. Three cheers for continuity. Underground parking is now accessed via a wide entranceway set between the two buildings, directly north of the Balmoral. The Sandringham's original parking access was via a discreet lane on the north side of the building.

That was then, Ottawa Journal, April 1958.

For anyone wanting a double serving of nostalgia, here's a hand-coloured postcard of Strathcona Park from the early 1900s — this is the original design, looking like an overblown putting range. The view is from the north end of the park looking southeast, with the old isolation hospital (which preceded the Sandringham) catching the evening light in the distance. A round concrete dais still marks the position of the former gazebo, or "summer house" as everyone called it back then. The decorative canals were eventually filled in due to complaints of mosquitoes, foul smells and child drowning risks.

In his 1912 reprint series, Goad devotes a corner of sheet 92 to the isolation hospital. His drawing agrees with the layout indicated in the postcard. The small box-like extension closest to the river was a nurses' residence, joined to the main building by a wooden passageway. Notice how the hospital lay entirely to the north of Templeton Street and faced toward Salisbury Road (now Range Road).

of course, nothing lasts...

Ottawa Journal, September 28 1954