EARLY DAYS A century’s worth of memories The history of the Lululemon building BY DAVE ALLSTON
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he iconic Lululemon building in the heart of Westboro, on the village’s busiest corner, turns 100 years old in 2019. This building has housed important shops, restaurants, medical offices and even homes that have been integral to life in Westboro. There are a century’s worth of great community memories found here. John Ullett of the prominent Woodroffe pioneer family constructed the oldest portion of the building in 1919 on a lot he acquired through foreclosure on a mortgage he had given to the previous owner. The lot was wide; fronting 106 feet onto Richmond Road. At the time, the lot contained only a small, primitive wood house on the western edge, about where Lexington Smokehouse and Bar exists today. The rest of the lot sat empty and was fairly thickly treed. This wood house – built in 1898 by 31-year-old jeweller Benjamin Read Whiteley – was actually one of the first structures on the south side of Richmond Road, which until 1906 was the Highland Park Dairy Farm run by the Cole family. (It was the first
farm in Canada to use electricity!) The Nepean Township town hall was built in Westboro in 1896 and when the streetcars arrived in 1900 it turned Westboro from farmland to a thriving village almost overnight. Ullett’s building may have originally looked similar to one he had built four years earlier (in 1915) at the northwest corner of Richmond and Woodroffe (the old corner store that stood until just a few years ago). The first tenant was one of Westboro’s most prominent citizens, and its first Jewish resident, Mr. Benjamin Bodnoff. The 32-year-old was a widower who had spent his twenties in the western neighbourhoods of Ottawa working his way up from nothing. He operated small shops that he also resided in, and in one documented instance, a building that had been condemned as uninhabitable. In Westboro, Bodnoff operated a dry goods and clothing shop in the long, narrow one-storey commercial building that fronted busy Richmond Road. His determination and drive for success was nothing short of epic. In March 1923, Bodnoff purchased the property from Ullett. The following
”It’s a much-loved building
that continues to stand as part of the enduring legacy of early Westboro visionaries like Benjamin Bodnoff. ” year, he demolished the Whiteley house and constructed a massive $3,500 addition along the west side that filled the lot. It featured Bodnoff’s store, a Dominion grocery, Turner Brothers butchers, and the offices of lawyer W. E. Haughton and dentist W. M. Myles. During this time, Morris Feldberg built the adjoining brick building to the south on Churchill Avenue (now Equator Coffee) for his shoe-making business. In fact, you can still see his “M” and “F” initials installed between the upper windows of the front of the building. He later opened Morris Formalwear in Hintonburg. Bodnoff’s continued to flourish through the roaring twenties and he
Lorenzo Bar & Grill , a new family restaurant located at the corner of Woodroffe and Richmond. Specialize in Greek and Italian food and also known for their amazing pizza. OPEN FOR BREAKFAST
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reinvested constantly in Westboro. Between 1929 and 1930, Bodnoff renovated the portion of the store alongside Churchill, making it larger and creating the unique rounded corner that remains an instantly recognizable landmark to this day. He also strategically built the front of this portion of the building set 14 feet back from Richmond Road, in anticipation of the required widening of the road. As Ottawa and Westboro grew and cars replaced horse and buggy, the Richmond Road streetscape was simply too narrow. Over nearly 10 years, and at a massive cost, Richmond was widened to 66 feet from Western Avenue to McKellar Park. These costs included the expropriation of
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