Harrington Lake 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
Harrington Park (homestead) his married daughter, Elizabeth Britten who was to hold the property in trust until her children Walter and Emma Mary Harrington Britten reached the age of 21. At the time of William's death, Harrington Park comprised . Unusual for the district, its main livestock were 350 sheep and it also carried 40 cattle and 5 pigs. There was no dairy herd although dairying was emerging as the main farming activity in the Camden-Campbelltown area at this time. Major renovations were made to the house in the 1890s and a new drive was created which passed an ornamental pond and entered