Lady Meredith House | |
---|---|
Former names | Ardvarna |
Alternative names | H. Vincent Meredith Residence |
General information | |
Type | Mansion (now offices) |
Architectural style | Queen Anne Revival |
Location | Golden Square Mile |
Address | 1110 Pine Avenue West Montreal, Quebec |
Construction started | 1894 |
Completed | 1897 |
Client | Vincent and Brenda Meredith |
Owner | The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (McGill University) |
Technical details | |
Floor area | 1,253 m2 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Edward Maxwell |
Official name | H. Vincent Meredith Residence National Historic Site of Canada |
Designated | 1990 |
Lady Meredith House, also known as the H. Vincent Meredith Residence, is a historic mansion located at 1110 Pine Avenue West on the corner of Peel Street, in what is today known as the Golden Square Mile of Montreal, Quebec. It was originally named Ardvarna and is now owned by McGill University. The building was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada on November 16, 1990. [1] [2] The house is situated at an altitude of 129 m. [3]
The land on which the house stands was originally part of the estate of Simon McTavish in the Golden Square Mile. In 1860, his heirs subdivided the land and sold it off in several large plots. The shipowner and financier, Andrew Allan, purchased one these plots just south of the fourteen acre plot purchased by his brother, Sir Hugh Allan, on which Ravenscrag was completed in 1863. Using the same architects as his brother, Andrew Allan built Iononteh, a greystone mansion completed in 1865 that dominated Upper Peel Street, but which has since been demolished.
In 1888, Andrew Allan gave a parcel of his land to his youngest daughter, Isabella Brenda Allan (1867–1959), on the occasion of her marriage to Vincent Meredith, who would become the first Canadian-born president of the Bank of Montreal and in 1916 was created the 1st Baronet of Montreal. [4] Meredith's brother, Charles, lived in the house immediately to the west of his home and their cousin, Frederick Meredith, lived only a few houses further down from them, also on Pine Avenue.
After their marriage, the Merediths lived on Sherbrooke Street in the house next door to the Van Horne Mansion. [2] In 1894, they commissioned the architect Edward Maxwell to build them a house on the land gifted to them by Mrs. Meredith's father on Pine Avenue, at the corner of Upper Peel Street. Their home, which they named Ardvarna, was completed in 1897. [1] [5]
In 1941, Lady Meredith gave the house and its land to the Royal Victoria Hospital for use as a nurses residence. [6] McGill University acquired the house in 1975, although it was shared with the hospital for several years afterward. In 1990, the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law moved into the residence. [6] Following an attempted arson on January 7, 1990, the house was thoroughly renovated by architects Gersovitz, Becker, and Moss. [6]
The house is considered to be an example of Queen Anne Revival-style architecture, [1] with some features resembling Richardsonian Romanesque. [6] The garden surrounding the house was designed by landscape architects Olmsted & Eliot. [7] In 1914, a large addition was made to the west of the central tower, again completed by the Maxwell brothers. The property also included a coach house, to the south of the main house, but in the same style and colour. Originally, the grounds included three levels of terraces, rosebeds, perennials, climbing vines and a kitchen garden, which have all now been replaced by a car park, as was the wrought iron gate in the style of Georgian Dublin. The two open-air verandas at the rear of the house, that gave uninterrupted views down over Montreal, the St. Lawrence River and onto the Green Mountains of Vermont, were filled in with windows sometime after 1941. In 1987, the house was described by Francois Remillard in his book Mansions of the Golden Square Mile, Montreal 1850-1930:
This is one of Edward Maxwell's most successful designs. It was constructed in 1894, and designed in Richardsonian Romanesque. However, even a cursory examination of its facade reveals a multitude of architectural influences making it an admirable example of Victorian eclecticism. With its towers, stepped windows and high chimneys Lady Meredith House befits the dramatic landscape of the slopes of Mount Royal. It is faced in brick, sandstone, granite and terra cotta, all red. The brickwork is excellent and in evidence on all four sides of the house. Such elaborate craftsmanship would be well-nigh impossible to replicate in our days.
The Coach House, now known as the Lady Meredith Annex, is home to the McGill University's Wellness Office, which offers services to medical students and resident physicians within McGill's Faculty of Medicine.
A portion of this building is rented by the Medical Students Society of McGill University. The space is used to hold club meetings, conferences, courses, as well as other extra-curricular activities.
Sir Hugh Allan was a Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate, financier and capitalist. By the time of his death, the Allan Shipping Line had become the largest privately owned shipping empire in the world. He was responsible for transporting millions of British immigrants to Canada, and the businesses that he established from Montreal filtered across every sphere of Canadian life, cementing his reputation as an empire builder. His home, Ravenscrag, was the principal residence of the Golden Square Mile in Montreal.
The Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), colloquially known as the "Royal Vic" or "The Vic", is a hospital in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It forms the biggest base hospital of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), which is affiliated with McGill University. The hospital was established in 1893 and was based at Pine Avenue, now known as the Legacy site, until 2015, when major hospital operations were moved to the Glen site, named for the former Glen railway yards. The future uses of the Legacy site are now under study and it seems likely that the site, which is adjacent to its main campus, will be taken over by McGill University.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Hugh Andrew Montagu Allan, was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He was the principal heir of his father, Sir Hugh Allan, and became deputy chairman of the family-owned Allan Steamship Line. He was president of several major Canadian financial institutions and of the Montreal General Hospital. He co-founded and was president of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal. In 1940, he and his wife donated their Montreal home, Ravenscrag, to the McGill University Faculty of Medicine, and it became known as the Allan Memorial Institute. He is best remembered as a sportsman who donated the Allan Cup, a trophy that is still awarded today to the Canadian men's amateur ice hockey champions.
The Golden Square Mile, also known just 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, 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.
The Allan Memorial Institute, also known colloquially as "The Allan", is a former psychiatric hospital and research institute located at 1025 Pine Avenue West in Montreal, Quebec.
Bruce Price was an American architect and an innovator in the Shingle Style. The stark geometry and compact massing of his cottages in Tuxedo Park, New York, influenced Modernist architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Robert Venturi.
Robert Findlay (1859–1951) was a Scottish-born Canadian architect. He was born in Inverness, Scotland, and moved to Montreal in 1885. He won the competition to expand the first Sun Life Building and was the architect for that project, which he began in 1890. The Sun Life company left that building for the current Sun Life Building in 1913.
Sir Henry Vincent Meredith, 1st Baronet, was a Canadian banker and philanthropist. He was president of the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. He was governor of McGill University and on the board of the Canadian Pacific Railway. His home in Montreal's Golden Square Mile was made a National Historic Site of Canada in 1990 and is today part of McGill University, named Lady Meredith House for his wife.
Charles Meredith was a Canadian businessman. He was president of the Montreal Stock Exchange and president of C. Meredith & Co., Montreal's leading brokerage firm in the early 20th century. He was a co-founder of the Mount Royal Club, and he had owned the land on which the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal was built, becoming a principal shareholder with a significant influence on its image and future. His mansion in Montreal's Golden Square Mile, now known as Charles Meredith House, is currently part of McGill University.
Frederick Edmund Meredith was a Canadian lawyer and businessman. He was the 8th Chancellor of Bishop's University; President of the Mount Royal Club; Bâtonnier of the Bar of Montreal; President of the Montreal Victorias for three of their Stanley Cup championships in the late 1890s, and Chief Counsel to the CPR at the inquest into the sinking of RMS Empress of Ireland.
Milton Park, commonly known as the McGill Ghetto, is a neighbourhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is situated directly to the east of the McGill University campus in the borough of Plateau-Mont-Royal. It is named after the neighbourhood's two main streets, Milton Street and Park Avenue. Many McGill students live in this area, which is characterized by a mix of rowhouses and low- to mid-rise apartment buildings. The area is roughly bordered by University Street and the university campus to the west, Sherbrooke Street to the south, Pine Avenue to the north, and Park Avenue and the Lower Plateau neighborhood to the east, though McGill University considers this area to extend as far east as Saint Laurent Boulevard or just short of Saint-Louis Square.
Pine Avenue is an east–west street in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This street serves as the dividing line between the downtown Ville-Marie borough and borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, and also serves as the northern border of the Golden Square Mile historic district, further west.
McTavish Street is a street in the Golden Square Mile of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is named for Simon McTavish, whose estate once covered the land about it. The street runs up the slope of Mount Royal, from Sherbrooke Street at its southern end, to Pine Avenue, where its end is marked by Sir Hugh Allan's former home, Ravenscrag.
Sir Andrew Thomas Taylor, JP, RCA, FSA, FRIBA was a British architect and councillor. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and practised architecture in Scotland and London before emigrating to Montreal, Quebec, in 1883, where he designed many of the buildings of McGill University. He retired from architecture in 1904 and returned to London, where he served on London County Council from 1908 to 1926. He was knighted for his political services in 1926.
Marguerite Martha Allan was the founder of the Montreal Repertory Theatre and co-founder of the Dominion Drama Festival. She loathed amateur theatre, but her energies spearheaded the Canadian Little Theatre Movement at a time when live theatre in Montreal and across Canada was being threatened by the rapid expansion of the American-influenced movie theater. She almost single-handedly laid the groundwork for the development of the professional modern Canadian theatre scene. In 1935, she received the Canadian Drama Award for outstanding service in the development of the Canadian theatre. At the annual Dominion Drama Festival the Martha Allan Trophy is awarded in her memory for the best visual performance. She also wrote three plays: What Fools We Mortals Be; Summer Solstice; and All Of A Summer's Day, that won the Sir Barry Jackson Trophy for the best Canadian play at the Dominion Drama Festival in the early 1930s.
Andrew Allan was a Scottish-born Canadian businessman and financier. In 1882, he succeeded his brother, Sir Hugh Allan, of Ravenscrag, in the Allan family's Canadian enterprises that were centred on the Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers, but also included banking and railways. He was Master of Foxhounds for the Montreal Hunt.
Ravenscrag is a former mansion that was built between 1860 and 1863 for Hugh Allan in the Golden Square Mile of Montreal, Quebec. It stands at 1025 Pine Avenue West at the top of McTavish Street, on the slopes of Mount Royal. Upon its completion in 1863, the mansion of 72 rooms surpassed "in size and cost any dwelling-house in Canada," exceeding Dundurn Castle, built by Sir Allan MacNab in 1835.
Notman House is a historic building at 51 Sherbrooke Street West in Montreal, Quebec, near the Golden Square Mile. Completed in 1845 for Sir William Collis Meredith, the house takes its name from the celebrated photographer, William Notman, who lived there with his family from 1876 until his death in 1891. The house is the only surviving residence of its era on Sherbrooke Street, and one of Quebec's few residential examples of Greek Revival architecture. It was classified as an historical monument and added to the Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec on December 8, 1979.
The High School of Montreal was an English-language high school founded in 1843, serving Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in the area eventually known as the Golden Square Mile. It was less formally known as Montreal High School and from 1853 to 1870 was called the High School of McGill College, or the High School Division.
Edward Maxwell was a prominent Canadian architect.