Westboro: Sold on a View That Wasn't Quite True

Sold on a View

In the late 1800s, developers trying to draw Ottawa residents out to a new riverside community promised them "views of the Laurentian Mountains." It sounded spectacular. It was also, generously speaking, a stretch what buyers were actually looking at were the Gatineau Hills across the Ottawa River, not the Laurentians at all.

It didn't seem to matter. People came anyway, and the place they came to is still one of Ottawa's most desirable addresses today.

The Origin

Westboro grew up along Macadam Road, now known as Richmond Road, on the way out toward Bells Corners. From 1903 to 1949 it was its own police village essentially a cottage-country weekend retreat for Ottawa residents looking to get out of the city. A streetcar line ran along what's now Byron Avenue, carrying city dwellers out to enjoy the riverside air.

Richmond Road was the commercial heart of the village from the very beginning, a role it's never really given up.

From Village to Neighbourhood

Ottawa annexed Westboro in 1949, folding the little riverside village into the growing city. Most of its housing stock dates from between 1900 and 1960, and to this day roughly 71% of homes there remain detached houses a reminder of just how much of the original village-scale development has survived.

Even its street names tell a story: Churchill Avenue was originally just Main Street, and Roosevelt Avenue was once River Road, both renamed in honour of the wartime leaders after the Second World War.

The Takeaway

Westboro's biggest transformation came in the 2000s, when outdoor and sports retailers like Mountain Equipment Co-op and Lululemon moved onto Richmond Road, followed by a wave of boutiques, restaurants, and cafes. The result is one of Ottawa's most sought-after retail and residential districts one that's managed to keep its village scale and its easy access to the Ottawa River and Westboro Beach even as it became one of the city's trendiest addresses.

The view that got people out there in the first place was never quite true. But the place itself turned out to be worth the trip anyway which might be the real lesson here: marketing can get people to look, but it's the neighbourhood itself that has to make them want to stay.

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