DOWN IN THE DUMPS

Re Behold The Architecture Of Canada (Editorial, Jan. 26): All the reports I have read sound as if repairing 24 Sussex is not a good idea. What an opportunity to hold a contest for Canadian architects and designers to create a new residence that is environmentally sustainable, beautiful and exciting.

Mary-Jane Horsfall Large Toronto

How about hiring Douglas Cardinal, the highly esteemed Indigenous architect, to design a modern house for the Prime Minister? He lives in Ottawa and might be available.

Barbara Klunder Toronto

It is the address that seems to be the landmark in this case, not the building.

Tear down 24 Sussex and reproduce the façade if that is what people want to save. Do it all at a fraction of the price.

Oops, sorry: government project – it would be double the price.

Chris McCabe

Blue Mountains, Ont.

By remarkable irony, a typesetting in the newspaper breaks the word extravagant into the hyphenated “extra-vagant” and puts 24 Sussex in the right context.

Vagant: Someone who leads a wandering, unsettled life without visible means of support.

M.P. Martin Ottawa

Based on the reported amount of work needed to restore 24 Sussex, there likely isn’t a party leader today who will still be in office when the work is completed.

It should be done. Get on with it.

John Burrows Toronto

24 Sussex does indeed reflect the architecture of Canada in other ways. It was built by a lumber baron and its last occupant, before being served with a federal eviction notice, was George Cameron Edwards, who also made his fortune in lumber.

I suggest a different solution to the politically sensitive issue of renovation: Sell the house and allow it to reassume its identity as a home of the well-heeled. A relatively low selling price, given the poor condition, should make it an attractive investment.

Rather than unending political headaches, it could be repurposed into a splendid set of townhouses.

Diana Nemiroff Ottawa

Why not declare 24 Sussex a national historic site, fix it up and repurpose it by inviting the neighbour across the road to take up residence? This would leave Rideau Hall vacant for the Prime Minister.

Bingo, all housed appropriately – and probably more palatably for taxpayers – and the grand edifice restored, as it should be.

Maurice Hladik

Cape Breton, N.S.

What the Prime Minister needs is a secure house suitable for a family, with some capacity for modest entertaining.

24 Sussex does not seem very private. I am no security expert, but why else would the price tag to upgrade it be $36-million?

Put the Prime Minister somewhere more suitable, then find a new use for the house.

Only the stone walls and landscape have been identified as heritage features. That leaves a lot of scope for imaginative design for another purpose.

A national portrait gallery, perhaps?

Heritage Ottawa has been campaigning for years for the government to make a decision here. Delinking the issue of accommodation from the future of 24 Sussex can move us forward.

Leslie Maitland

Past president, Heritage Ottawa

Perhaps HGTV could take on the renovation of 24 Sussex. It might take more than one season, but it would be a fun show to watch.

Julianna Drexler Toronto

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