A Head-scratcher on Belmont Avenue, Old Ottawa South

This ad appeared numerous time in the Ottawa Citizen in the autumn of 1907. This example was published on November the 18th.

I love coming across these old ads for newly-built homes, tracking down the addresses to see how they look today. I popped into Street View and headed to the southern tip of Old Ottawa South to see how 57 Belmont is holding up and I found this instead —

— now that's not the same house, is it?

The house pictured in the ad is built entirely in the style of those first erected along Belmont in the latter 1900s and early1910s. But aerial photos (1928) and the 1933 Directory show #57 (as well as neighbouring 55 and 53) to be vacant. 

Fast-forwarding to the the summer of 1946, less than a year after the end of WWII, we find this —

— which nicely describe what we see at the address today, a cozy, 2-storey, vaguely New-Englandish early post-war home. Indeed, newspaper ads that ran the same spring and summer make it obvious that #s 53 and 55 (built in the same style) were built at the same time by the same ... home-builder.

So cue the maps already.

While the segment of Belmont Avenue between Bank and Riverdale (green line) existed at least as early as 1906, the Federal-issue topographical maps would have us understand that most of the residential side-roads in the Windsor Park / Riverdale South neighbourhood were built (though not necessarily built upon) between 1914 and 1916. This would include the extension of Belmont east from Riverdale to the western shore of the Rideau River. This precedes Caldwell's announcement by several years. To put it bluntly, today's 57 Belmont was a flood-prone waste-ground in 1907, pasture at best. This topo map shows the lay of the land in 1908, Belmont highlighted in green —

Goad 1912 agrees that there was already several houses along the north side of Belmont around that time.

He further indicates that Belmont had in fact been extended a short distance east of Riverdale by 1912. What's especially relevant to our search for Waldo #57 is the addresses given to the homes on the north side of the street. I know they're hard to read, even when you click to enlarge, but trust me, 53 sits on the NE corner of Willard, 69 on the NW.  Some time in the early-ish 20th century, Belmont was re-numbered. Goad puts us in the exact right spot, but there's a street where 57 should be.

None of the houses standing on part of Belmont are the one pictured in the Caldwell ad. Was it built somewhere else entirely ... or was it demolished a decade after being built to make way for Willard Street?

Seriously, I have no idea.