The house began as a love story. In 1866, lumberman and Member of Parliament Joseph Merrill Currier commissioned the large limestone residence as a wedding gift for his fiancee, Hannah Wright. Completed in 1868 and christened Gorffwysfa, the 35-room house rose on the south bank of the Ottawa River, overlooking Governor Bay. It passed through private hands after Hannah Currier's death, selling for $30,000 in 1901 to William Edwards. The house might have remained just another grand Ottawa estate had the federal government not used its power of expropriation in 1943 to seize the property from Gordon Edwards, William's nephew, consolidating Crown ownership of the riverfront lands. In 1951, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent became the first leader to take up residence, and the address entered the national vocabulary.

Unlike the White House or 10 Downing Street, 24 Sussex has never served as a working seat of power. Prime ministers conduct official business from the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council building near Parliament Hill, leaving Sussex Drive as a purely domestic space. This quirk of Canadian governance may explain why the house has been so persistently neglected. Since renovations in 2001, almost nothing has been spent on upkeep. The Auditor General flagged the residence as needing $10 million in repairs in 2008. By 2015, HGTV host Bryan Baeumler estimated $15 million. The National Capital Commission's 2021 assessment ballooned to $36.6 million. The heating and cooling systems are antiquated. The wiring is outdated. The roof leaks. No sitting prime minister has been willing to authorize the work, fearing the political optics of spending millions on their own home while Canadians struggle with housing costs.

Stephen Harper was the last prime minister to actually live at 24 Sussex, departing in 2015. Justin Trudeau, who had spent part of his childhood there when his father Pierre was prime minister, chose instead to live at Rideau Cottage. The reasons were practical: the building had become genuinely dangerous. By 2023, the walls, attic, and basement were filled with rodent carcasses and excrement. Asbestos laced the structure. The electrical systems were so obsolete the house was classified as a fire hazard. Work crews finally began stripping the asbestos and removing the condemned mechanical systems in May 2023, but the building's future remains profoundly uncertain. Maureen McTeer, wife of former Prime Minister Joe Clark, has bluntly called the structure "completely lacking" in architectural value and not worth saving.

The debate over 24 Sussex mirrors a broader Canadian ambivalence about political symbolism. Heritage advocates argue the house should be preserved for its 150-plus years of history. The RCMP worries the site sits too close to a busy road and lacks an adequate security buffer. Some have proposed demolishing the entire structure and rebuilding, which would actually cost less than renovation. Before leaving office, Trudeau wrote to his Minister of Public Services and Procurement outlining three options: renovate or replace the building at its current site, relocate to another property in the Rockcliffe Park neighborhood, or simply upgrade Rideau Cottage. The estimated cost for even the cheapest option exceeds $100 million. For now, the limestone walls that once sheltered a lumber baron's bride stand empty beside the Ottawa River, waiting for a country to decide whether its leader's home is worth the price of repair.