An architectural oddity —the Franconna (with a total of three n's) Apartments, previously the Belgrave Terrace Apartments, was built in 1903 as a home for lumberman Robert Hurdman on the occasion of his retirement. He died a year later. Ottawa historian Chris Ryan wrote a wonderfully researched history of the the building that I had hoped to link to, but his "Historynerd.ca" blog seems to vanished from the interweebs 😞 a grave loss of valuable research.

Suffice it to say that the house gained a bizarre cube-shaped rear annex some time before 1928, which subsequently had its southern half chopped off when Gladstone Ave. was widened, some time between 1958 and 1965.

My photos were taken late autumn 2025, iPhone 15 Pro The aerial photos show the annex in gold (1958 and 2021), note its reduced size in the latter shot.