Holt Renfrew Ogilvy facts for kids
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Ogilvy department store in 2014
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Formerly
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Ogilvy (1866–2019) |
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| Private | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Genre | Department store |
| Founded | 1866 |
| Founder | James Angus Ogilvy |
| Headquarters | 1307 Saint Catherine Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Products |
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| Owner | Weston family (2010–present) |
Holt Renfrew Ogilvy is a famous department store in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It's located on Saint Catherine Street West in the busy downtown area. Many people still call it Ogilvy, which was its original name.
Since 2011, the store has been owned by the Selfridges Group. This group is part of a larger company owned by a British-Canadian businessman named Galen Weston. Because of this, Holt Renfrew Ogilvy is connected to other well-known department stores. These include Holt Renfrew in Canada and European stores like Arnotts, Brown Thomas, de Bijenkorf, and Selfridges. Ogilvy is special because it's one of the few big stores in Montreal that still uses its original name. People sometimes call it the "grande dame of Saint Catherine Street."
Ogilvy started as a store selling "dry goods," which included fabrics and clothing. It was founded in 1866 by James Angus Ogilvy. The store moved to its current spot on Saint Catherine Street West and Rue de la Montagne in 1912. By 1920, it had become a full department store. Today, it features special sections for luxury brands like Burberry, Hermes, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Dior. In 2019, the store changed its name to Holt Renfrew Ogilvy. It finished a big renovation and expansion in 2020. This project brought the older Holt Renfrew store from Sherbrooke Street into the larger Ogilvy building.
Contents
How the Store Started (1800s)
Founding the Store
In 1866, a man named James Angus Ogilvy moved to Montreal from Kirriemuir, Scotland. He opened a store that sold fabrics and other dry goods. It was located on Mountain Street. People say Ogilvy started with just one counter and one employee.
He stayed at that spot for ten years. Then, he moved his "fancy and staple dry goods" business to a new location on St. Antoine Street. In 1884, Ogilvy moved again. By 1889, his business, James A. Ogilvy & Sons, had grown. It started selling home furnishings, linens, and fine dry goods. They even sold a special type of fire hose!
Moving to Saint Catherine Street
In September 1896, James Ogilvy opened a new, bigger store. It was a three-story building made of granite. This new store was at the corner of St. Catherine Street West and Mountain Street. James's son, David Ogilvy, who was an architect, designed it.
The store had many new features for customers and employees. It even had a special sitting room for ladies. This room had cherrywood details, writing tables, and chairs. Even with the bigger store, Ogilvy said his business would stay focused on dry goods. He proudly called Ogilvy's the "largest exclusive dry goods store in Canada." He promised to offer "the world's best merchandise at the lowest possible price."
Growing Through the 1900s
A Brand New Building
For 16 years, the store stayed at its location on St. Catherine Street West. But the business kept growing! So, Ogilvy bought land right across the street. In 1908, they started building a new store. This new building had four stories and cost over a million dollars. David Ogilvy, James's son, designed this one too.
The new store officially opened in March 1912. News reports said it was very spacious. They noted that "1,000 people can be standing at the counters at one time." Advertisements called it "The Daylight Store." This was because it had many windows that let in lots of natural light. Sadly, James A. Ogilvy, the founder, passed away the year before the new store opened. People remembered him as a kind and generous person.
Changes from 1920 to 1949
By 1920, Ogilvy's had changed its focus. It was no longer just a dry goods store. It became a full department store. It offered new services like a "Hair Dressing Parlor" and a "Lunch Room." During this time, the store's ownership also changed.
In 1927, a young man named J. Aird Nesbitt bought the store. He was only 19 years old! He planned to sell it quickly for a profit. But instead, he "fell in love with the place." He ended up managing Ogilvy's for the next 54 years.
J. Aird Nesbitt became a very important person in Montreal's retail world. He was known for being creative and trying new things. He didn't follow the usual ways of big department stores. Nesbitt even called himself "more showman than storekeeper."
Soon after taking over, he added a fifth floor to the building. Here, he opened Tudor Hall. This was a music hall with 300 seats and a large pipe organ. Tudor Hall hosted many events. These included concerts, puppet shows, and even performing baby elephants! Early radio shows were broadcast from there, including the first Montreal Symphony Orchestra show across Canada. In 1931, Canada's first experimental television broadcast happened there! Nesbitt even brought the world's fastest airplane, a Vickers-Armstrongs Supermarine biplane, into the store for display in 1932.
Nesbitt also focused on making the store's inside look beautiful. Chandeliers became common fixtures. In the 1960s, he bought a huge, 100-light crystal chandelier. It came from a famous old theater in Montreal that was being torn down. This beautiful chandelier still hangs on Ogilvy's ground floor today.
Nesbitt had a special policy for what the store would sell. He wanted to offer items that customers would truly enjoy. He said, "We feel that the more fun we get out of merchandising ourselves, the more our customers will enjoy it." He wanted to bring in "delectable and exciting things" from around the world.
Nesbitt also honored the store's Scottish roots, and his own. He introduced tartan shopping bags and packaging. He also started a unique tradition: a Scottish bagpiper would play music while walking through the store. This was for the entertainment of shoppers and staff. Starting in 1945, the bagpiper would play to close the store at the end of the day. For many years now, the bagpiper plays at noon, walking through all the floors.
Nesbitt was also behind the store's famous annual Christmas window display. In 1947, he asked a German toy company called Steiff to create two animated holiday scenes. These were called "The Mill in the Forest" and "The Enchanted Village." They had dozens of handcrafted mechanical toy animals. These animals had over a hundred moving parts! In 2008, these displays were fully repaired and restored.
From 1950 to 1999
In the 1960s, Ogilvy's was one of the first stores to use trendy words like "go-go" and "mod" in its ads. It also quickly adopted the "Chelsea look," which included the miniskirt, by offering fashions from British designer Mary Quant.
Ogilvy's expanded into the suburbs of Montreal. It opened branch stores at Fairview Pointe Claire in 1965 and Anjou in 1968. However, by the 1970s, the store was no longer seen as the top fashion leader. It became known for its more traditional customers.
In 1981, J. Aird Nesbitt retired after more than 50 years leading Ogilvy's. Edward Walls became the new CEO. He wanted to reduce the number of departments in the store. In 1985, the Nesbitt family sold Ogilvy's to a Montreal development group called Equidev.
The new owners started big renovations. They introduced a new shopping idea called "store within a store." Ogilvy's changed from a regular department store into a collection of fancy shops and boutiques. These smaller stores were run by independent retailers and brands, but they followed Ogilvy's overall rules. In 1986, the first renovated part, a completely new second floor, was revealed. It took two more years to finish remodeling the rest of the store. After the renovations, 85 percent of the store's space was rented out to about 50 different retailers. In 1994, Standard Life Assurance Company bought Ogilvy.
Ogilvy in the 2000s
In 2000, the store was sold again to Pyxis Real Estate Equities Inc. In 2004, the store had another remodeling that cost $12 million.
In 2010, a group from Quebec bought it. But within a year, it was sold again! This time, the Selfridges Group Limited bought it. This group is part of a larger company that owns other upscale stores. These include Selfridges in the UK, Brown Thomas in Ireland, de Bijenkorf in the Netherlands, and Holt Renfrew in Canada.
In 2013, there were talks about turning the Ogilvy building into a new "Holt Renfrew Ogilvy" store. The plan was to close the existing Holt Renfrew store on Sherbrooke Street and move it into the bigger Ogilvy building. The renovation for this big change happened from 2017 to 2020. It added a lot of new space, making the total store size much larger.
See also
- List of Canadian department stores
