Rockcliffe Park in Ottawa designated national historic site by federal government

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The federal government has declared Rockcliffe Park a national historic site, making it one of 33 districts in the country with such a designation.

Ottawa-Vanier MP Mona Fortier, acting on behalf of Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, made the announcement Tuesday. The designation covers the old village of Rockcliffe Park and encompasses about 785 homes on 440 acres of land.

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The Historic Sites and Monuments Board cited the neighbourhood as “an excellent example of the English and American picturesque planning traditions of the late 19th century,” with narrow, winding roads, no sidewalks, and large, treed lots.

The board said the area was home to high-quality examples of Tudor, Georgian and Queen Anne-style homes designed by renowned architects such as Allan Keefer, Werner Noffke, A.J. Hazelgrove, Hart Massey and A.J. Ames.

The Rockcliffe Park Residents Association welcomed the designation as a “singular distinction.”

“We’ve really worked hard to get here, so we’re just elated,” said Susan Peterson, chair of the association’s heritage outreach committee. “It’s a very rare honour for a district to be declared a national historic site.”

The federal designation does not bring with it any additional legal protections for the heritage elements of the neighbourhood, Peterson said, but it does recognize the significance of Rockcliffe Park on both the local and national stage.

Heritage protection is a municipal and provincial responsibility, and Rockcliffe Park has already been designated as a heritage conservation district.

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Rockcliffe Park was created from the 1,100-acre estate of Thomas McKay, a wealthy businessman and stonemason who built Rideau Hall. Following his death in 1855, McKay’s son-in-law, Thomas Keefer, a civil engineer, envisioned a neighbourhood that could be fashioned out of the rocky, hilly land east of downtown Ottawa that McKay had once dismissed as fit only for cattle.

Keefer laid out Rockcliffe Park in 1864 as a planned subdivision with no industry, taverns or commercial offices. Buyers had to agree not “erect anything objectionable or inconsistent with the maintenance of the estate as a park for private residences.”

The roads followed the land’s natural topography, rather than a grid pattern imposed by brute force. Property owners were required to plant trees, to use natural building materials and to demarcate boundaries with hedges rather than fences.

The result, Peterson said, is a neighbourhood in which landscape is the most important design element.

“Keefer fashioned a community where the landscape setting, the park-like setting, is the most distinctive feature and most important feature of the neighbourhood,” she said.

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“It means you’re living in nature. You’re living in a place that has worked with nature as opposed to against it. It’s quiet, people walk their dogs, and, because of the park-like setting, people walk all the time and they get to know one another.”

Rockliffe Park was a self-governing municipality for most of its history and imposed restrictive covenants and bylaws to preserve its heritage. It did not become part of the City of Ottawa until 2001.

Scott Heatherington, president of the Rockcliffe Park Residents Association, lauded both the original vision for the neighbourhood and the “generation after generation of residents” who had dedicated time and effort to protect and enhance it.

Martha Edmond, author of the book Rockcliffe Park: A History of the Village, wrote the association’s 2021 application to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board.

She said Keefer’s design was “quite revolutionary” for its time in North America. “At the time, you either lived on a farm or in an inner-city environment that was quite polluted and unhealthy,” Edmond said Tuesday. “Keefer was interested in making a better urban environment.”

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What’s also remarkable, she said, is that so much of that design has remained intact. “Keefer could walk through the village today and be very happy with it,” Edmond said. “He would still recognize a lot of his vision.”

Rockcliffe Park, she said, has also played an important role on the national stage as an attractive home to diplomats, missions and embassies. “All capital cities have a certain role in showing off to the world,” Edmond said.

The Parliament Buildings, the Château Laurier, the National Arts Centre, the Rideau Canal and Beechwood Cemetery are among Ottawa’s other national historic sites.

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