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Page 16 The th <strong>OSCAR</strong> - OUR 38 YEAR<br />
DEC 2011<br />
OTTAWA SOUTH HISTORY PROJECT<br />
720 Echo Drive – The Enduring Stones of Time<br />
By Jean-Claude Dubé<br />
The recent Home for the Holiday<br />
house tour highlighted,<br />
amongst others, a beautiful<br />
nearly century-old house with river<br />
stone walls at 720 Echo Drive. The<br />
lot upon which this house is built was<br />
originally part of an estate owned<br />
by George Hay, a successful 19th<br />
century hardware store owner who<br />
later became president of the Bank<br />
of <strong>Ottawa</strong>. His house, a designated<br />
heritage building from the 19th<br />
century, still stands at 700 Echo Drive.<br />
The entire area within the<br />
confines of Bank Street, Echo Drive,<br />
Riverdale and Sunnyside Avenues<br />
was owned by George Hay and<br />
Thomas McKay, a miller and nephew<br />
of Thomas McKay, the founder of<br />
New Edinburgh. Thomas McKay’s<br />
estate fronted Bank Street and<br />
extended eastward between Echo<br />
Drive and Sunnyside to the present<br />
and extended easterly boundary of the<br />
Royal Canadian College of Physicians<br />
and Surgeons’ property. This is also<br />
known as the former monastery of the<br />
contemplative religious order of the<br />
Sisters of the Precious Blood. The rest<br />
of the land, an odd-shaped quadrangle,<br />
was George Hay’s property.<br />
After George Hay’s death in<br />
1910, followed by the death of his<br />
first son, also named George Hay, in<br />
1911, the estate was subdivided in a<br />
great number of lots on Echo Drive,<br />
Riverdale and Sunnyside Avenues.<br />
The executor was the Toronto General<br />
Land Corporation and the Ontario<br />
Land Surveyor was S.E. Farley. These<br />
lots were put on sale late in 1911,<br />
marketed as Lansdowne Heights.<br />
Mary A. Munsie, a spinster<br />
and seamstress living at 43 Aylmer<br />
Ave (then Dufferin Ave) purchased<br />
720 Echo Drive Photo by Jean-Claude Dubé<br />
the 720 Echo Drive lot on January<br />
22, 1913. Miss Munsie was the<br />
daughter of Sergeant James Munsie<br />
who owned the city block between<br />
Barton and Grosvenor streets, north<br />
of Aylmer Avenue. Currently, the<br />
<strong>Ottawa</strong> Citizen ad May 11, 1911<br />
Cont’d on next page<br />
Colonel By Residence for Seniors is<br />
located there. In the late 19th century,<br />
Sergeant Munsie had been the keeper<br />
of a wooden railroad swing bridge<br />
over the Rideau Canal at the location<br />
where the present day O-train travels
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