RESIDENCES |D E L I G HT S
Norway’s residence closely connected to nature By Patrick Langston
Photos by Ashley Fraser
COMPLIMENTS OF THE EMBASSY OF NORWAY
The massive stone Gothic Revival home inhabited by Norwegian Ambassador Anne Kari Hansen Ovind and her husband, Tom, is set up on a hill in Rockcliffe Park, overlooking the grounds of Rideau Hall.
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irst-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, diplomat and international canada
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 85
