Before Parliament Hill, There Was the Other Hill

I’ve lived in Ottawa for over twenty years and I have taken every single visitor I’ve ever had to Parliament Hill. Every one. It’s the Eiffel Tower problem. Parisians have been rolling their eyes at tourists with selfie sticks in front of an iron tower since 1889, and Ottawans have been doing the same quiet internal sigh at the Hill for just as long. We mean well. It’s just that we’ve boxed ourselves in, and in doing so we’ve walked right past places like Laurier House Ottawa without a second glance.

Ottawa’s history doesn’t begin and end on Wellington Street. It is richer and stranger and more layered than most of us who live here have bothered to find out. I include myself in that. I’ve lived here for over two decades and it took me until this spring to spend an afternoon on the Other Hill, the one that predates Parliament Hill as the centre of Ottawa’s political and social life, the one where ten prime ministers once lived within walking distance of each other.

The one with the seance room.

I’ve lived in Ottawa for over twenty years and I have been going to the wrong hill.

Sandy Hill: Where Ottawa’s Real History Lives

Sandy Hill gets its name from the sandy soil that made it difficult to build on, which did not stop it from becoming the most prestigious address in Ottawa for the better part of a century. By 1900, there were more people of rank and title living in this neighbourhood than any other comparable district in Canada. Prime ministers, lumber barons, senior civil servants, all of them drawn to this quiet enclave just east of the core.

Walking it today you can feel why. Mature trees canopy streets lined with historic homes, the kind of neighbourhood that invites you to saunter. It sits right beside the University of Ottawa and a short walk from the Byward Market, but it feels like a world apart, an idyllic little oasis that most tourists drive past on their way to somewhere louder.

That’s their loss.

This is also the unceded territory of the Anishinabeg Algonquin nation, and The Other Hill initiative, centred along Laurier Avenue East, is working to make that history as visible as the political one. Trilingual signage in English, French, and Anishinabeg, walking tours, and community conversations about art, politics, and indigenous history are all part of what makes this corridor worth more than a single afternoon. It rewards coming back.

Laurier House sits at the heart of it, on the corner of Laurier and Chapel, and it is exactly as stately as the neighbourhood around it.

Inside Laurier House: Where Canadian History Gets Weird

Laurier House reflects both prime ministers throughout. No single era dominates, and walking through it you feel the weight of both men in the same rooms. The guides are stationed throughout but they read the room well. They are there if you want them and absent if you don’t, which means you can move at your own pace and imagine yourself into the history rather than being walked through it on someone else’s schedule.

What you feel, more than anything, is importance. The sense that great things happened here. Decisions that shaped the country, conversations that changed the course of it, and in King’s case, a few conversations with people who were no longer alive to have them.

The dining room stops you first. A formal table set for dinner under a plasterwork ceiling that belongs in a different century, portraits of both men watching from the walls, a fireplace anchoring the room. You can feel the weight of the dinners that happened here, the deals made, the arguments had, the silences that meant something.

Then there is King’s breakfast room on the top floor, a lighter space entirely, more personal, with a table set as if he just stepped out, an old style radio in the corner playing music from the era. It is one of those interpretive touches that Parks Canada does quietly and well. You hear the music before you fully register why it feels so right.

Of all the rooms I wished to linger in though, it was the library. A well-organized pack rat’s haven with floor to ceiling books, old photographs, hand crafted furniture, papers and knick knacks accumulated over a lifetime, and a crystal ball sitting there as casually as if everyone keeps one on the shelf. The fireplace has an inscription carved into it: “Through wisdom is a house builded and by understanding it is established.” There is a portrait of King’s mother that I am going to diplomatically describe as atmospheric and leave it at that.

It is also, and I cannot stress this enough, the seance room. There is a half height glass partition you stand behind but you do step into the space and it is genuinely hard not to imagine the conversations that took place here, with both the living and the dead. I am not personally a believer in communing with the deceased but I can absolutely appreciate a prime minister who was. King held seances regularly in this room, consulted that crystal ball, and kept diaries that ran to millions of words, the most detailed record of any world leader in the twentieth century.

He asked that those diaries be destroyed upon his death. They were not. I am now side-eyeing my own best friend and her promises accordingly.

So you’re thinking he might be crazy, right? Fair assessment, but history looks favourably upon King: a 2016 Maclean’s poll of historians ranked him as Canada’s greatest prime minister. The man who seemed indecisive, who was wooden and uninspiring as a public speaker, who never gained the affection of the Canadian public, led this country through the Second World War, established the welfare state, and served longer than any prime minister in Canadian history. He also consulted the spirit world regularly. Both things are true. Canada contains multitudes.

Laurier is the more conventionally admirable of the two, eloquent and charismatic where King was wooden, a unifier in an era of deep cultural division. He was the first French Canadian prime minister, served fifteen unbroken years, and is sometimes called the Father of Modern Canada. He believed the twentieth century would belong to Canada. He was not entirely wrong. His legacy, like King’s, is complicated by policies that caused real harm, particularly to indigenous peoples and to immigrants, and that honest reckoning is part of what makes this house worth visiting.

It is not a shrine. It is a mirror.

Both men were shaped by this house and this neighbourhood. Both left their mark on the country in ways we are still living with. Walking through these rooms you feel that, and it stays with you after you leave.

And yes, there is a closet with a crocodile leather bag and a prime ministerial dress uniform hanging in it. This house contains multitudes too.

Working Title Kitchen: The Church Across the Street

Directly across Laurier Avenue East from Laurier House sits a deconsecrated Anglican church that Leanne Moussa took over and turned into something Ottawa didn’t know it needed, but now can’t live without. Moussa is Muslim, her investors include Jewish and Christian partners, and together they brought a deconsecrated Anglican church back to life as a community space. If that is not an incredibly Canadian story I don’t know what is.

Working Title Kitchen is a restaurant, bar, event space, and community hub that somehow manages to be all of those things without feeling like any of them are an afterthought. When Moussa took it over she made a promise to her investors and her neighbours: the space would stay open, unsubdivided, and accessible. No carving it up into smaller rooms for efficiency. No closing off the history to make way for the practical. The promise holds and the space rewards it.

Go upstairs if you can. Ask a staff member and they will almost certainly say yes, unless there is an event in the space, in which case come back. The stained glass up there in worth spending some time gawping at. One window is a memorial to Sir Robert Borden, Prime Minister of Canada from 1911 to 1920, erected by his family in 1939. Another era of Canadian political history, preserved in glass, in a building directly across the street from where two other prime ministers lived. This block is doing a lot of heavy lifting historically and it does not seem remotely tired of it.

Downstairs there is a smaller gathering space worth knowing about, and the bar area with its Gothic arch windows and original stone walls is the kind of room that makes you want to stay longer than you planned. Move in even, but I think that might be frowned upon.

This is why we support small business owners. Because they care about the area beyond their threshold. Because they live in the community and the decisions they make reflect that. Leanne Moussa could have done a lot of things with that building. What she did instead was give it back.

Make a Day of It: The Other Hill on Foot

If you are visiting Ottawa for the first time, Parliament Hill is not optional. Go. It is extraordinary. But do not let it be the whole story. Sandy Hill is fifteen minutes on foot from the Hill and it offers something the tourist circuit rarely does: the feeling of a city that actually lives in its history rather than just displaying it. The embassies along Range Road, the University of Ottawa, the heritage homes, the river, the park, the church turned community hub, the prime ministerial mansion with a seance room. This is Ottawa being itself rather than performing for visitors, and that version of the city is worth at least one afternoon of your trip.

If you are an Ottawa resident reading this and nodding along while quietly admitting you have never actually done any of this, no judgment. I was you until very recently. We both know what we have been doing wrong.

Start with Tea on the Veranda at Laurier House Ottawa at the 10:30 am seating. You will be done by 12:30, pleasantly full, and in exactly the right mood for a slow afternoon. Your house visit is included, so take your time inside. Follow the guides or don’t. Linger in the library. Think about the crystal ball. Side-eye the portrait of King’s mother.

From there, step outside and walk the neighbourhood. The Other Hill initiative has installed trilingual signage along Laurier Avenue East that tells the indigenous history of this land alongside the political history most visitors know. Take the time to read them. The corridor between King Edward and Strathcona Park is a twenty minute walk that rewards attention.

Strathcona Park sits at the eastern end of the corridor along the Rideau River, and in summer it hosts outdoor theatre including Odyssey Theatre productions. Even without an event on it is worth the walk. Bring a book. Sit by the river. Remember that you are technically still in the core of a capital city and it does not feel remotely like it.

The Ottawa Art Gallery at 50 Mackenzie King Bridge is nearby and worth a stop, particularly the Jackson Café if you need a coffee between stops.

End at Working Title Kitchen for dinner. Ask a staff member to take you upstairs to see the stained glass before you sit down. Order whatever looks good. And before you leave, stop at the bakery counter. Do not leave without something for breakfast the next morning. You will thank yourself.

This is a day that asks very little of you and gives back considerably more than you expect. That is the best kind of day Ottawa has to offer, and it has been hiding in plain sight for most of us who live here.

How to Visit Laurier House Ottawa

Laurier House National Historic Site is located at 335 Laurier Avenue East in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill neighbourhood, on the corner of Laurier and Chapel.

Hours: Thursday to Monday, 10 am to 5 pm. Check the Parks Canada website for any seasonal changes before you go.

Admission: Guided tours are $11 per person. Self-guided visits are available during open hours at no charge. From June 19 to September 7, 2026, admission is free for everyone thanks to the Canada Strong Pass. No sign-up, no pass required. Just show up.

Tea on the Veranda: Runs Thursdays and Fridays starting June 4, with Wednesdays added from July 8 through September 25. Seatings at 10:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 2:30 pm. Priced at $68 per person, which includes your house visit. Book at pc.gc.ca/the-laurier-tea. This sells out, book early.

Getting there: Sandy Hill is walkable from the Byward Market, Centretown, and the University of Ottawa. Street parking is available on surrounding streets. OC Transpo routes serve Laurier Avenue East directly.

Working Title Kitchen: 330 Laurier Avenue East, directly across the street. Restaurant, bar, bakery, and event space. Check workingtitleottawa.com for hours and reservations.

The Other Hill: Why It Matters Right Now

Canada is going through something. You know it, I know it, and honestly our history knows it too because it has been through versions of this before. The men who lived in this house navigated conscription crises, world wars, economic collapse, and the complicated business of building a country out of people who did not always agree on what that country should be. They did not always get it right. The record is clear on that. But they kept going.

As Canadians, these moments walking in our history do more than inform. They inspire. I am a deep thinker when it comes to reflecting on history, so I get that not everyone is going to stand in the seance room and have an existential moment. If you walk away thinking pretty house, great food, that is completely valid. But for those who want to read the plaques, talk with the guides, stare at a room and imagine themselves listening in on conversations that were both important and occasionally completely unhinged, there is something here worth sitting with. These people, complicated and flawed and occasionally consulting the spirit world, got us where we are today.

That Canada has always been a work in progress. That the trilingual signage going up along Laurier Avenue East, acknowledging the Anishinabeg Algonquin nation on land where prime ministers once held court, is not a contradiction. It is the continuation of a very long conversation about who we are and who we are still becoming.

Our history is not boring. It is strange and complicated and full of men who consulted crystal balls and named all their dogs the same name and somehow also built the welfare state. It is full of people who were failed by the country and people who fought to make it better and people who were both at the same time. It is ours. All of it.

Everything you need to understand about Canada, about this particular moment, about what we are made of and what we are capable of, is available to you on a quiet street in Sandy Hill, fifteen minutes from Parliament Hill, in a house that belongs to all of us.

Go. It is worth your time. And it is free this summer.

Good Questions, Glad You Asked

Disclosure: I was invited to visit Laurier House National Historic Site and Tea on the Veranda as a guest of Parks Canada. As always, all opinions, historical rabbit holes, and side-eyes directed at best friends are entirely my own.