I think everybody has at least one building they’ve fallen in love with and wish they could live in.
The Hollywood Parade is one of mine. It’s a flamboyant row house at the corner of James and Lyon, and it is so overwrought it’s charming. I remember as a teenager thinking it was kind of tacky and excessive, but now I love everything about it, including the name.
Nobody (and by nobody, I mean Heritage Ottawa) seems to know how it got its name, although they speculate that the neighbourhood might at one time been known as “Hollywood,” given that there was also a Hollywood Restaurant nearby on Kent Street. If I remember it correctly, it was a diner/greasy spoon that served mostly Chinese food and pizza.
I’ve heard the architectural style of the Hollywood Parade described as “Islamic Richardsonian Romanesque Revival,” and while I have no idea what that means, it’s got a suitably extravagant and eclectic ring to it.
James A. Corry, an architect and the most prominent builder in Centretown at the time, built the Hollywood Parade in 1892-93.
In addition to its massive Romanesque entrance arches, horseshoe-arched windows, elaborate patterned brickwork, terracotta panels, stained glass windows and marble colonettes, he lavished the Hollywood Parade with three different window styles, a crazy roofline with ornate brackets, Greek-inspired palmettes, and griffins perched along the decorative metal edge. The griffins, sadly, are gone now.
Each of the six units was assessed at $1,575 in 1894, although it was under single ownership until 1949. The units have been used as single family homes, a kindergarten, and rooming houses over the years. Currently one of them is a spa.
I’ve never been inside, but apparently the interior is not as lavish and ‘exuberant’ as the exterior. Each unit consists of a double living room (with marble fireplaces), a dining room and a kitchen on the ground floor, and five bedrooms upstairs. I’ve heard that one unit has extraordinary examples of Trompe l’Oeil illusionistic murals painted on its interior walls.
I’d love to come home to the Hollywood Parade, a house that practically laughs out loud when it sees me coming.
(By the way, does anyone have any idea what that thing is in the window?)
I’ve never noticed the sign that says Hollywood Parade before. What a funny name!
They look like exercise bars for doing pushups
Welcome Malva! It’s a funny name, but it’s perfect, don’t you think? The building reminds me of one of those one-man bands.
Deb, do you think they do pushups right there in the window, or they just store the bars behind the curtains when they’re not using them?
I think they’re vents for a dryer or similar thing. You open the window and put the nozzles out, then take them back in when you’re done.
They are probably portable air-conditioner vents, those new models of air-conditioners on wheels.
My guess is the workings for the updating of a claw-foot tub. You’d have to run the pipe in somewhere and the white thing the background might be a suspended shower curtain…? I know, it’s a long shot.
You guys are all so smart! All of those ideas sound much more plausbile than the one I thought of, which was so assinine I’m not even going to tell you.
Its a Grow-op hmmmmmm ya never know
Its a stand-on-the-floor air conditioner in Viorika’s spa: http://www.viorica.ca/photo.html
Yes, were indeed modern 2007 A/C vents for Viorica’s Spa which operated for two years from the master bedroom, that front room. The little one person, business in the home operation just got too popular and we moved that to 195 Kent Street, and now we’re called The European. We attracted lots of customers off the Web who were 1/2 attracted by the space, I believe. There is no other place with that authentic old world charm. We were renting and loved the place inside, but especially outside. Great neighbors too. Our unit was nicely renovated, with a giant bathroom upstairs which made the spa project possible. It’s still a rental and will come up every couple years if you are interested, keep your eyes open. One unit just sold, and as you can imagine it was a a couple hundred times the 1894 price. If I ever have a chance to own one, I will develop the basement, and make a terrace on the roof. There is a huge space up there that the 4 owners could collectively develop for total R&R. I’d suggest an elevator built between two units to share, would make that work.
If you want to visit the space, go see Erlene’s House of Fashion, the unit at the end, where Ottawa’s nobility shops for evening and gala gowns.
Tom