Golden Square Mile

The Golden Square Mile, also known as the Square Mile, is the nostalgic name given to an urban neighbourhood developed principally between 1850 and 1930 at the foot of Mount Royal, in the west-central section of downtown Montreal in Quebec, Canada. The name 'Square Mile' has been used to refer to the area since the 1930s; prior to that, the neighbourhood was known as 'New Town' or 'Uptown'. The addition of 'Golden' was coined by Montreal journalist Charlie Lazarus, and the name has connections to contemporary real estate developments, as the historical delimitations of the Golden Square Mile overlap with Montreal's contemporary central business district.
From the 1790s, the business leaders of Montreal looked beyond Old Montreal for spacious sites upon which to build their country homes. They developed the farmland on the slopes of Mount Royal north of Sherbrooke Street, creating a neighbourhood famous for its grandeur and architectural audacity. At the Square Mile's peak, its residents included the owners and operators of the majority of Canadian rail, shipping, timber, mining, fur and banking industries. From about 1870 to 1900, 70% of all wealth in Canada was held by this small group of approximately fifty men.
By the 1930s, multiple factors led to the neighbourhood's decline, including the Great Depression, the dawn of the automobile, the demand for more heat-efficient houses, and the younger generations of the families that had built these homes having largely moved to Westmount. During the Quiet Revolution, some of the businesses created in Montreal, on whose fortunes the Square Mile had been built, moved to Toronto. In this period, the Square Mile evolved to gradually become the central business district, and many of its grand houses were demolished. The face of the Square Mile was altered, leading to the formation of Heritage Montreal to preserve historic architecture in the city.
By 1983, only 30% of the mansions in the northern half of the Square Mile had survived demolition; and only 5% survived south of Sherbrooke Street. Many of the remaining mansions, such as the James Ross House, today known as Chancellor Day Hall, are today owned by McGill University. Nevertheless, the mansions of the Golden Square Mile represent a prosperous period during which Montreal was the cultural and financial capital of Canada.

Borders

The neighbourhood had precise borders measuring roughly a square mile, covering the area between Dorchester Boulevard at the southern end, Pine Avenue at the foot of Mount Royal at the northern end, University Street at the eastern end, and Guy Street at the western end. In effect, however, the 'Square Mile' was contained within a far smaller area, between Sherbrooke Street and Pine Avenue, and Côte-des-Neiges and University, covering scarcely nine streets on the north–south axis. From east to west: McTavish Street, Peel Street, Stanley Street, Drummond Street, Mountain Street, Ontario Avenue, Redpath Street, Simpson Street and Guy Street; and three streets on the east–west axis, from south to north: Sherbrooke Street West, McGregor Street and Pine Avenue.

Architecture

The architects of the Square Mile included Robert Findlay, Bruce Price, Sir Andrew Taylor, William Thomas, John Hopkins and the brothers Edward and William Maxwell. The architecture was an eclectic mix of the Neo-classical, Neo-Gothic, Romanesque, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Art Nouveau, though other styles also figured prominently, sometimes within the same home. By World War I, simpler houses were built, such as Herbert Molson's. Maison Cormier was one of only a few examples of Art deco.
Scottish sandstone and local granite were commonly used materials, and most homes had substantial grounds, atria and large conservatories. A great many of the Square Milers were keen horticulturalists and aside from their gardens, they enjoyed keeping hothouse flowers through the long winters. The streets of the Square Mile were lined with elm, spruce and maple trees, but an outbreak of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s destroyed those that had once lined Sherbrooke Street.

Montreal's mercantile community (1642-1930)

In 1642, a fort named Ville Marie was founded on the Island of Montreal by Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve. Ville Marie became a centre for the fur trade and French expansion into New France until 1760, when it was surrendered to the British army, following the French defeat of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. British immigration expanded the city.
The British immigrants who came to Montreal after the Conquest tended to be from well-connected mercantile families and immigrated to Canada as a means to further their fortunes, unlike earlier British immigrants who came to North America to escape religious or political persecution.
The city's golden era of fur trading began with the advent of the locally owned North West Company. In the 1760s, the men of the Beaver Club, a gentlemen's dining club, provided the financial backing and necessary management to take control of the fur trade. The new merchants were associated with the North West Company, the Hudson's Bay Company and the agents of the East India Company, and eventually dominated the fur market in most of British North America.
As many of the wealthy French Canadians moved from Canada to France following the Conquest, British merchants were able to cheaply purchase vast tracts of land upon which to build factories, and take control of the banking and finance of the new Dominion. The growing fortune of the Montreal mercantile elite of this era was consolidated through marriage and company mergers. After the collapse of the fur trade in the 1850s, the mercantile elite turned its interest to railways and shipping.
By the mid-19th century, the Montreal mercantile elite, residing in the Square Mile, firmly held the reins of Canada's economy. The merchants successfully connected Canada by building a network of railroads and exploiting maritime routes and the port of Montreal, which l remained the principal port through which immigrants arrived, and also through which Canada's produce was shipped to and from Britain and the Empire.
For decades, the wealth accumulated from the fur trade, finance, and other industries made of Montreal's mercantile elite a "kind of commercial aristocracy, living in lordly and hospitable style," as Washington Irving observed. In 1820, John Bigsby penned his impressions of the city:

I found, but did not expect to find, at Montreal a pleasing transcript of the best form of London life — even in the circle beneath the very first class of official families. But I may be pardoned; for I had seen in the capital of another great colony considerable primitiveness of manners.. at an evening party at Mr Richardson's the appointments and service were admirable; the dress, manners, and conversation of the guests, in excellent taste. Most of the persons there, though country-born, had been educated in England, and everything savoured of Kensington. There was much good music.. Some of the show-shops rival those of London in their plate-glass windows, and its inns are as remarkable for their palatial exterior as they are for their excellent accommodation within.. Montreal is a stirring and opulent town.. Few places have so advanced in all the luxuries and comforts of high civilisation as Montreal.

Periods

Early estates

Before the 1840s, the landed, political and wealthier merchant classes of Montreal lived on their seigneuries during the summers and came to the city only for Parliament or to conduct business during the winter. In 1816, Francis Hall, then a young officer with the 14th King's Hussars, observed that Montreal's gentry "live in a splendid style, and keep expensive tables". They kept townhouses on St. James Street, Notre-Dame Street and overlooking the Champ de Mars; enjoying among other entertainments the German Orchestra and Viennese dances held at the Hayes House theatre on Dalhousie Square. In 1795, Isaac Weld commented that "the people of Montreal, in general, are remarkably hospitable and attentive to strangers; they are sociable also amongst themselves, and fond in the extreme of convivial amusements".
But lively as it was, Old Montreal with its frequent fires and swelling population was becoming less desirable. The wealthy merchants in particular began to seek large plots of land on which to build homes worthy of their success while remaining close to their business interests; and, their eyes turned to the fertile farmland under Mount Royal. John Duncan observed in 1818 that, "a number of very splendid mansions have lately been erected on the slope of the mountain, which would be regarded as magnificent residences even by the wealthy merchants of the mother country". In 1820, John Bigsby described the view from Château St. Antoine, then said to be 'the most magnificent building in the whole city and standing within 200 acres of parkland roughly at the end of Dorchester Street:

I had the pleasure of dining with at his seat, on a high terrace under the mountain, looking southwards and laid out in pleasure-grounds in the English style. The view from the drawing room windows of this large and beautiful mansion is extremely fine, too rich and fair, I foolishly thought, to be out of my native England. Close beneath you are scattered elegant country retreats embowered in plantations, succeeded by a crowd of orchards of delicious apples, spreading far to the right and left, and hedging in the glittering churches, hotels, and house-roofs of Montreal...

The early residents of the Square Mile enjoyed marked benefits from being the first to settle there: The houses were surrounded by acres of parkland, with long carriage drives, vineries, orchards, fruit and vegetable gardens. The surveyor Joseph Bouchette noted that the produce from these gardens in the summer months was "excellent in quality, affording a profuse supply... in as much, or even greater perfection than in many southern climes". In 1822, Sir Richard Phillips commented that,

A number of handsome villas now make their appearance around the town, and there are numerous sites still unoccupied, which will probably be hereafter crowned with elegant seats. Few places in the world possess more capabilities of this kind than Quebec and Montreal; if the latter is less bold than the former in its scenery, it possesses much richness and delicate beauty, which need nothing but wealth and taste to display them to advantage; the former already exists in Montreal to a great extent, and there are also very respectable proofs of the existence and growth of the latter.

;List of principal structures built

Beaver Hall. Built in 1792, for Joseph Frobisher, it stood between the McTavish and McGill properties on the site that is today commemorated as Beaver Square. It stood amidst 40 acres made up of forest and apple trees, roughly where the Sun Life Building is today. The house measured 80 feet across and his dining room comfortably sat forty guests. It burned down in a fire in 1847.
Burnside Place. Built in 1797, for James McGill. Unlike the mansions built by McGill's contemporaries, Burnside was a comfortable farmhouse of two stories over a basement for the kitchen and servants, standing on 46 acres of land, and used by the McGills during the summer. In his will, McGill bequeathed the property and £10,000 to establish a university, which would become McGill University. Immediately after his death, the house was occupied by his stepson, François-Amable Trottier DesRivières, who fought to keep the house for himself rather than give it to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning as his stepfather had intended. The last person to occupy the house was John Bethune; it was replaced by the Arts Building in 1837. "Burnside Place" is visible in an early photograph by William Notman, a view from Mount Royal towards the harbour, taken in 1860. It was located roughly where McTavish and De Maisonneuve intersect. The Arts Building is located further up the hill. The engraving by John H. McNaughton, 1842, shows "Burnside" in relation to the McTavish House, which was located near the site of the new Arts Building.
McTavish House. Built in 1800 for Simon McTavish. Constructed with dressed limestone by French masons. The facade of the main house measured 145 feet across, with two semi-circular towers, capped by typically French conical roofs at each end. Soon after its completion, it was described as "a large, handsome stone building.. at the foot of the mountain in a very conspicuous situation. Gardens and orchards have been laid out, and considerable improvements made, which add much to the beauty of the spot". The house was left empty from 1805 and was supposedly haunted by McTavish. It was demolished in 1860/61, when the estate was broken up and sold off in plots. Some of the stone from the original house was used to construct Braehead in 1861.
Chateau St. Antoine. Built in 1803, for William McGillivray. A 'fine Georgian structure of cut stone', the house was described in 1816 as the most magnificent building in the whole of the city. The house, which boasted 'an enchanting' ballroom, stood on Cote St. Antoine near the end of Dorchester Street within 200 acres of parkland 'laid out in pleasure-grounds in the English style'. McGillivray was said to have lived like a lord, enjoying a magnificent view of the city and the river. The house was afterwards occupied by several different owners: John McKenzie, Louis-Joseph Papineau, Charles Wilson and finally the Desbarats family. It has since been demolished.
McLeod House, Rue St. Antoine. A 'first class house' built circa 1810 for Archibald Norman McLeod, since demolished.
St. Antoine Hall, St. Antoine Street; a forty-two room home built for John Torrance, 1818; A 'handsome residence' built in the palladian style, on a 'grand and sprawling estate,' renowned for its acres of gardens, greenhouses, vineyards and orchards, surrounded by a high brick wall. Since demolished.
Piedmont, Pine Avenue; built before 1820, when Louis-Charles Foucher moved in with his family. It was purchased in the 1830s by John Frothingham; inherited in 1870 by John Henry Robinson Molson. The house stood among orchards and formal gardens and was approached by a long tree-lined drive on what are today the grounds of McGill University. Its 10 acres of grounds were purchased by Lords Strathcona and Mount Stephen in 1890, on which they built the Royal Victoria Hospital. The house was demolished in 1939.
Lunn House, Sherbrooke Street; built in 1825 for William Lunn, demolished 1920
Manoir Souvenir, between Dorchester Boulevard and the fashionable Rue Saint-Antoine; it stood within a park of 240 acres and was built in 1830 for Frédéric-Auguste Quesnel; afterwards inherited by his nephew, Charles-Joseph Coursol. It still stands today, though derelict and barely recognisable from its former grandeur.
Terrace Bank, Sherbrooke Street; built in 1837 for John Redpath who purchased the 235-acre estate for £10,000 from the Desrivières family in 1836. He subsequently subdivided the property at a profit of £25,000, with little infringement on their space, before building his home on a plot amidst gardens and orchards with a private road that ran up to the house from the corner of Mountain and Dorchester streets. The house was enlarged by the Redpaths in 1861 and since demolished. The land on which the house stood has been replaced by Redpath Crescent.
Kildonan Hall, 681 Sherbrooke Street West; built in the 1840s for Joseph Mackay. Named after Kildonan, Arran where he was born. In the photograph of the house its conservatory can just be made out on the left, and the coach house and stables are seen beyond the arch to the right of the house. Joseph's nephew, Robert Mackay, lived and died there in 1916. The house was demolished in 1930.
Mount Prospect House, Sherbrooke Street; built in 1842 for William Workman, demolished 1952
Athelstane Hall, 'a fine house' on St. Alexander Street; built in 1844 for John Smith, and afterwards occupied by Rev. Gavin Lang. Since demolished.
Notman House, Sherbrooke Street; built 1843-45 for Sir William Collis Meredith, to the design of John Wells. Although it lies outside the Square Mile and is of more modest proportions than its counterparts, it is the only surviving residence of its era on Sherbrooke Street - that was once lined with many like it. It is also one of Quebec's only few remaining Greek Revival residences. It was purchased by Alexander Molson circa 1865, who sold it in 1876 to William Notman, for whom it is named today. In 1894, it was purchased by Sir George Drummond for use as the St. Margaret's Home for Incurables. In 2012, it was purchased by the OSMO Foundation.
Rosemount, McGregor Street; built in 1848 for Sir John Rose, 1st Baronet on land that he purchased from Sir George Simpson; purchased in 1871 by William Watson Ogilvie and altered by him in 1890; purchased in 1926 by Sir Percy Walters who demolished the house in 1943 to create 'Percy Walters Park'.