J.R. Booth House / Laurentian Club
252 Metcalfe Street
Written by Bytown Museum
on
03/Dec/2009
Commissioned by John Rudolphus Booth, this stunning mansion was built in 1909. Built on a corner, the house has two main façades.
J.R. Booth, known as Canada’s Lumber King, opened a small shingle mill next to the Chaudière Falls in 1857. Not long after, he was selling newsprint across North America and Great Britain. At the height of his career, Booth became the largest producer of lumber in the world, with sufficient timber limits to lay a mile-wide strip stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. Upon his death in 1925 at the age of 99, he left a fortune estimated to be worth $35 million.
In the late 1940s, the Booth family sold this home to the Laurentian Club, which occupied the building until 2000. Today, the mansion is home to the Laurentian Leadership Centre, part of Trinity Western University.
Did you know that the very serious J.R. Booth was a great lover of flowers? What’s your favourite garden in Ottawa?
