Vimy House was a warehouse in the

Centretown West Centretown West, also known as West Centretown or Dalhousie is a neighbourhood in Somerset Ward in central Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the city's Little Italy and Chinatown enclaves. The Ottawa Neighbourhood Study defines the neig ...

neighbourhood of

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

that was used to store the collections of the

Canadian War Museum The Canadian War Museum (CWM) () is a National museums of Canada, national museum on the military history of Canada, country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military hist ...

from 1983 to 2004. The building, originally known as Champagne Garage was built to house the

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

s of the

Ottawa Electric Railway Ottawa Electric Railway Company was a streetcar public transit system in the city of Ottawa, Canada, part of the electric railway streetcars that operated between 1891 and 1959. Ottawa once had tracks through downtown on Rideau Street, Sparks Str ...

. After the railway's closure in 1959, the

Ottawa Transportation Commission Ottawa Transportation Commission was the public transit operator for the city of Ottawa from 1948 until the creation of OC Transpo in 1973. OTC took over streetcar operations from the Ottawa Electric Railway, but they were gradually abandoned for t ...

(and later the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Transit Commission) used the warehouse for storing their buses up until 1979. The building was later acquired by the Canadian War Museum to be used as a storage facility for its collections when its

Sussex Drive Sussex Drive (), also known as Ottawa Regional Road93, is an arterial road in Ottawa, Ontario, the capital of Canada. It is one of the city's main ceremonial and institutional routes. Travelling roughly parallel to the Ottawa River, Sussex Drive ...

facility ran out of space. The building, later renamed Vimy House, became filled with a vast array of aged military paraphernalia including the world's largest collection of Canadian war art. While items from the Vimy House collection would occasionally be put on display at the museum itself, the public could also visit Vimy House on special open house days and tour its collection. The last open house was held on September 6, 2003. In 2004, the collections at Vimy House were moved into the new Canadian War Museum building at LeBreton Flats. The building was sold and renovated and is now a

self storage Self storage (a shorthand for "self-service storage") is an industry that renting, rents storage space (such as rooms, lockers, Shipping container, shipping containers, and/or outdoor space), also known as "storage units," to tenants, usuall ...

facility.

References

*"Vimy houses military history." Jim Bishop. ''The Ottawa Citizen.'' Ottawa, Ont.: April 17, 1999. pg. B.8 *OC Transpo annual report 1979, page 11 - Retrieved January 16, 2013
"The New Canadian War Museum"
''Legion Magazine''. May 1, 2005. {{Coord, 45.409475, N, 75.717312, W, region:CA-ON_type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Ottawa Canadian Museum of History Corporation

See also

References