By Nancy Miller Chenier
Lowertown’s Watergate apartment building was built and advertised just a year before Washington’s Watergate bugging scandal led to President Nixon’s resignation in the United States in June 1972. The apartment buildings in the Watergate complex in Washington were developed to great fanfare in the late 1960s, and by 1970 the complex was one of the most sought-after living locations in the city. The Wurtemburg apartments overlooking the Rideau River, like the Washington apartments overlooking the Potomac River, were advertised in 1971 as a blend of traditional good taste and ultra-modern convenience.
John H. Daniels, then architect for the Cadillac Development Corporation, did not produce a building with the acclaimed curvilinear design of the Washington buildings. Instead, he designed the 20-storey building that replaced the former home of Prime Minister Robert Borden as a vertical rectangle of precast concrete slabs clad in pale yellow brick. But the modern riverside design with balconies and spacious suites offering air conditioning and cable television was enough to entice early occupants.
A decade after designing the Watergate, Daniels was chairman and chief executive officer of Cadillac-Fairview, then one of the largest publicly owned development companies in North America. By 1983, he founded Daniels Corporation and became known as the builder with a heart. His Ottawa legacy is limited but his story lives on in the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.
The Watergate on Wurtemburg continues to live up to the descriptions in early advertisements as a quiet adult building situated in artistically landscaped scenic surroundings. It no longer has the Salon Le Versailles that in the mid-1970s offered ladies the opportunity to “Enjoy the relaxing luxury of a facial.” But the Urbandale Corporation continues to offer various on-site amenities such as a fitness centre and sauna.
This Watergate may not be in Washington but as many residents know, it is an easy walk from Wurtemburg to Parliament Hill. And its overall story was enough to earn the building a place in the 2017 book titled From Walk-Up to High-Rise: Ottawa’s Historic Apartment Buildings, a publication featuring several Lowertown buildings which is still available at Heritage Ottawa.