Architectural style Colonial Revival style | Construction started 1925 | |
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Size 16 room home on 5.4-hectare (13-acre) property | ||
Harrington Lake (French: La résidence du lac Mousseau) estate is the name of the summer residence and all-season retreat of the Prime Minister of Canada and also the name of the land which surrounds it. It is located near Meech Lake – where the Meech Lake Accord was negotiated in 1987 – approximately 35 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, in Gatineau Park, amidst the Gatineau Hills in Quebec. The estate is not open to the public, but the Mackenzie King Estate, the retreat of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King at Kingsmere, is a tourist attraction 2 kilometres south in the park.
Since 1986, the 5.4-hectare (13-acre) property at Harrington Lake has been managed by the NCC. The property includes four recreational buildings; the land, which formerly consisted of cultivated fields, has reverted to secondary forest.
In addition to the main cottage with its fine view over the lake, the Harrington estate includes the following structures:
The lake itself and the area around it are referred to as Lac Mousseau. The name Harrington is thought to be a misspelling of Hetherington, the name of a family which settled in this area. The French name Mousseau comes from another early settler to the area, Louis Mousseau who bought property here in 1867.
The retreat is accessed by Chemin de Lac Meech with a gatehouse, staffed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at the driveway of the retreat. The Prime Minister's motorcade accesses Harrington Lake from Ottawa via Quebec Autoroute 5.
History
Several families came in the 19th century to settle the Harrington Lake area, including the Harrington and the Mousseau families. The lake eventually became known as “Harrington Lake” in English and “lac Mousseau” in French. The Mousseau family had built a farm on the shores of the lake, which remained in the family for several decades. Since the land was not suitable for farming, the lumber industry replaced it as the primary economic activity. In the early 20th century, two Americans, W. A. Drum and W. L. Donnelly, built a sawmill at Harrington Lake to serve the lumber industry.
In the 1920s, Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Macpherson Edwards, a member of an important lumbering family in Ottawa, inherited part of the property. He recognized the value of the land for recreation, as well as for lumber. He purchased more land around the lake, expanding his total holdings to some 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres). He also ordered the demolition of the mill buildings at Harrington Lake, and replaced them with a 16-room cottage that was designed in the Colonial Revival style, very common in the 1920s according to the NCC, but with the addition of large fieldstone chimneys.
In 1951, the lake and the property (including neighbouring land belonging to William Duncan Herridge and Stanley Healey) were acquired by the King in Right of Canada to build up preserves of natural areas around the capital. In 1959, supporters of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker suggested that he needed a quiet place to go fishing, not too far from Ottawa. Later that year, Harrington Lake was chosen as the site for an official country residence and the buildings were formally designated as a secure residence for Canada’s prime ministers.
During the first prime ministership of Pierre Trudeau, his then-wife, Margaret, added a vegetable garden; according to Kim Campbell's autobiography Time and Chance, the garden still provided the house with fresh produce at the time of that writing. Campbell was the only Prime Minister to have spent her entire term in office residing at Harrington Lake. Initially, Campbell took up residence at Harrington Lake so that her predecessor, Brian Mulroney, could continue to reside at 24 Sussex Drive until renovations on his new private residence in Montreal were completed. Once Mulroney vacated 24 Sussex, Campbell had not finished moving to that address before her party was defeated in the 1993 election.