It is located in the downtown neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec, and as the only one of four major west-end stores in the city that has retained its original name, has been nicknamed the "grande dame of Saint Catherine Street".

The store was rebranded to Holt Renfrew Ogilvy in 2019, and completed a significant renovation and expansion in 2020 through a collaboration between Jeffrey Hutchinson & Associates, Martin Brûlé Studio, Laplace, Gensler & Lemay; it provided for the consolidation of the former Holt Renfrew on Sherbrooke Street West into the larger, 23,000-square-metre (250,000 sq ft) Ogilvy building.

[3] In 1866, James Angus Ogilvy, a recent immigrant from Kirriemuir, Scotland, opened a wholesale and retail dry goods store at 91 and 93 Mountain Street in Montreal.

[7] In fact, one of the company's mail order catalogues boasted that Ogilvy's was the "largest exclusive dry goods store in Canada", featuring "the world's best merchandise at the lowest possible price".

The four-storey, Romanesque Revival structure, again designed by David Ogilvy, and costing well over a million dollars,[9] was formally unveiled in March 1912.

"[7] Advertisements promoted the new establishment as "The Daylight Store" - an apparent reference to the abundance of natural light allowed by its many windows.

Press reports referred to his "straightforward" character and "generous but never ostentatious" nature and how he was a major contributor to his church, as well as local charitable and community organizations.

[12] By 1920, Ogilvy's array of merchandise and services had expanded and its policy of remaining strictly a dry goods business had changed.

A. Ogilvy Limited now promoted itself as a department store that included amenities such as a "Hair Dressing Parlor" and a "Lunch Room.

[18] Other attractions included the world's fastest aircraft, a Vickers-Armstrongs Supermarine biplane, which in 1932 Nesbitt had dismantled and reassembled for in-store display.

During the 1960s, he purchased the century-old, 100-light crystal Bohemian chandelier from Her Majesty's Theatre, Montreal, following its demolition, and put it on display on Ogilvy's ground floor, where it still hangs today.

Among other changes, Walls expressed his desire to reduce the number of store departments from 66, which ranged from antiques to television sets.

[17] Four years later, after entertaining various offers, and asking for reassurances that "every reasonable effort" would be made to retain its retail tradition, the Nesbitt family sold Jas.

A. Ogilvy Limited to Equidev, a Montreal development group led by real estate entrepreneur Daniel Fournier.

Wittington's other holdings include upscale retailers Selfridges in the United Kingdom, Brown Thomas in Dublin, Ireland, de Bijenkorf of the Netherlands, and Holt Renfrew in Canada.