In the second volume of A History of Canadian Architecture, Harold Kalman says the following of architect Hart Massey and of the house he designed on the western shore of McKay Lake in the Heritage Village of Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa.

Ottawa architect Hart Massey (b. 1918) – the son of Vincent Massey – had a short but important career, from 1953 until his early retirement in 1970. His own striking Hart Massey house built in 1959 on Lansdowne Road in the Ottawa suburb of Rockcliffe Park, is a minimalist structure consisting of a delicate steel frame that contains a series of modular ‘boxes’, some glazed, others with opaque walls. It recalls the two famous ‘glass houses’ built a decade earlier by the masters of modernism: Mies van der Rohe’s Farnworth House in Plano, Illinois (1946-50), and Philip Johnson’s house for himself in New Canaan, Connecticut (1947-9).

Whereas the two American houses are set on tidy flat grassed clearings, with trees as a backdrop, and dominate their surroundings, the Massey House is integrated into a less-disciplined sloping site among trees on the shore of McKay Lake. By raising the house free of the ground on their columns, Massey left the site virtually untouched (a characteristically Canadian acceptance of the natural landscape) and the structure floats within this setting. The steel members were originally painted white, but Massey later coloured them black to provide better contrast with the trees. Hart Massey was awarded a Massey Medal for his design – which his neighbour, the distinguished landscape architect Humphrey Carver, described as ‘a beautiful and very cerebral house’.¹

Thomas and Susan d’Aquino purchased the house from Hart Massey in 1977. The house had suffered extensive damage from a number of hard winters that, as originally designed, it was not suited to withstand. The d’Aquinos carefully restored the house while meticulously respecting its design. They also effected extensive adaptations primarily to its non-visible infrastructure to make it less vulnerable to climatic extremes.

Passionate gardeners, the d’Aquinos over three decades have tackled the enormous challenge of transforming the clay-ridden and rubble-filled site they inherited into a largely wooded area rich with numerous indigenous, shade-loving plants and flowers. In the 1990s, the d’Aquino’s garden was twice awarded the Sue and Henry Davis Cup for first prize in the Village garden competition. In 2006, the d’Aquinos acquired adjacent lakeside property to the south re-establishing a garden on the site that had existed in decades past. Today, the gardens have been successfully integrated and new varieties of plants and flowers continue to be introduced. Each season brings its own beauty to the garden, and attracts varied wildlife – frogs, turtles, songbirds, ducks, herons, geese, osprey, cormorants, otters, foxes, muskrats.

As a millennium project, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) undertook to recognize buildings and urban spaces throughout the country that have been “significant in shaping our built environment”. In May 2000, the RAIC published its results.² The house was one of 472 buildings and sites chosen and the only residence in Ottawa to be so honoured.

Designation of d’Aquino Residence as a National Historic Site

On August 9, 2018, Thomas d’Aquino and Susan Peterson d’Aquino were advised by The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of the Environment, that the residence where they have lived since 1977 was designated a National Historic Site by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

The decision of the Board was reflected in an excerpt from its minutes as follows:

• It is an iconic example of mid-century modern residential architecture in Canada, and a particularly Canadian example of the International style because of its sensitivity to its natural surroundings; the minimalist structure consists of a series of modular boxes enclosed by alternating glass and opaque walls, which open the house to its site creating a completely unique architectural ensemble;
• The prestigious house reflects the personal taste and modernist ideals of its architect, Hart Massey, who designed it for himself and his family in 1959; it earned him the Silver Medal of the Massey Awards for Architecture, the highest honour at the time;
• Elevated on thin steel columns so that it appears to float above its sloped site on McKay Lake, the house was designed to preserve the integrity of its natural environment; its architecture is an extension of the landscape, and its dramatic expanses of glass erase the line between indoor and outdoor space.

Photos by Adrienne Herron

¹ Harold Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, Oxford University Press, Toronto, New York, Oxford, 1995, Volume 2, 810-811.
² The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, A Millennium of Architecture Celebrated Through Canadian Eyes, McGraw Hill, 2000, 17.