First-time visitors to her official residence in Rockcliffe Park don’t know what to expect when they arrive, says Norwegian Ambassador Anne Kari Hansen Ovind.
Given that it’s a massive, stone Gothic Revival home built about 1887 and festooned with gables, carved bargeboard trim and three monumental chimneys, that uncertainty is understandable. But while you might anticipate at least a nod inside to the heavy, ornate tastes of the Victorian period, what you find instead are expanses of open, sunny spaces, sleek, low-cut Scandinavian furniture and, on the walls, a tasteful scattering of mostly contemporary art.
“We’re very proud of this home… (but) people are often surprised when they enter,” says Ovind, who is winding down her four-plus-year posting to Ottawa and will be returning to her own home in Oslo this summer.
Sitting atop a hill overlooking the grounds of Rideau Hall, the eight-bedroom residence is an intriguing juxtaposition of old and new, weight and lightness. It’s also a welcoming space, made doubly so by the warmth of the ambassador and her husband, Tom Oscar Ovind, who recently retired from a senior communications position with the Norwegian Armed Forces. The couple has two sons, one a student at Carleton University and the other at Ashbury College.
Their residence has had several owners, but originally belonged to Thomas McLeod Clark, son-in-law of Thomas McKay, an Ottawa founding father. Clark named the home Crichton Lodge after his mother-in-law, Ann Crichton, and the original wooden Crichton Lodge sign hangs in the foyer, where officials put it after the Norwegian government purchased the home in 1949.
The main floor includes a large living room with a fireplace bookended by two bay windows. They look out over the well-treed grounds and underscore the interior’s connection with the outside world (a delighted Tom shows his photo of a bushy-tailed fox that regularly commutes between the property and that of the governor general.)
Earth tones predominate in the living room furniture. A love of natural materials and simplicity is behind Scandinavian design, says Tom. “You try to go into the core and get rid of everything else.”
“Also practicality,” adds the ambassador. “We are a very practical people. We appreciate that the furniture is actually working.”
She interrupts her observations on Scandinavian design to mention Nordic Bridges, a year-long culture and arts program planned for 2021 in Canada. Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre is leading the initiative, which will see artists from Canada and the Nordic region, including Norway, connecting on culture’s role in creating and promoting sustainable societies. The program is still being worked out, but the ambassador, whose enthusiasm is pervasive and infectious, is clearly on board.
Her own artistic interests include a gleaming upright Samick piano along one wall in the living room. Urged on by us, the ambassador, who grew up in a music-loving family and takes the piano on every posting, plays a little Schumann and Grieg, her touch economical if unexpectedly self-conscious.
On an adjacent wall, Oslo, a large mosaic-style painting by Norwegian artist Kira Wager, hangs above a couch. “I feel like it captures the life in the streets of Oslo,” the ambassador says. “It’s a very lively city, especially in the summer, with outdoor cafés, and I feel the atmosphere [in the painting.]”
Like Wager’s painting, most of the art is owned by the Norwegian government. That includes a sketch of a couple watching the sun sink over water. It’s by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, but unlike his famous painting The Scream, this piece is serene.
The ambassador leads us up the stairs to the couple’s private, second-storey quarters to admire two of their own paintings: A lumbering grizzly bear and a trio of brilliant blue jays perched in spruce trees, all commissioned from Ottawa painter Christopher Griffin. The animals represent the Canadian biodiversity that she and her husband appreciate, says Ovind.
Elsewhere on the main floor is a bright sunroom, a favourite spot for tea and conversation, and a study with stained glass windows where, in former times, the gentlemen would have retired for postprandial brandy and cigars.
The dining room, where Munch’s sketch hangs, is spacious, yet restrained and seats up to 18 (Tom grumbles a bit that the LCBO doesn’t stock Scandinavian aquavit, which he’d like to offer guests with traditional Norwegian fish dishes). Off the dining room is a terrace, the site of occasional, large-group barbecues, complete with live music.
The couple will miss Ottawa, but their Norwegian home should bring back memories of this posting. “I’m a sportswoman and as a keen cross-country skier, I love the Gatineau Park,” says Ovind. “The proximity to that gem is quite unique for a capital. It reminds me a little of our lifestyle in Oslo because we also have easy access to nature.”
Patrick Langston is an Ottawa writer who wishes he lived in a manor.
