STEWART HALL EXHIBITION

rom the permanent exhibition called Visions of Stewart Hall 1885-1963

CHRONOLOGY

1855

Pointe-Claire opens its railway station.

1885

Thomas and Alice Amelia (Armstrong) Crane acquired a parcel of land in Pointe-Claire. Gradually they bought other lots. 

1890 

Upper-class families begin to look for summer homes for fresh air and rest in the country. Charlesvoix and suburban Montreal, along the St. Lawrence becomes a popular choice.

Construction of the villa finished called the Knoll. It was a building made of wood, with turrets, a colonial roof, and a black and white upper story (half-timbered look). There was a windmill that used gravity to provide the villa with water. 

1891

The Cranes owned from Lake St. Louis to the railway, St. Jean to Sunnyview Avenue. They were travelling between Montreal and Toronto for business. They lived in major hotels like the Windsor hotel.

1898

Farm operations were productive enough to require a distribution network for milk and eggs. There were cows, chickens, and pigs. 

1900

Bourgeoisie were increasing in number by the end of the nineteenth century. Most were men from “liberal professions”, but increasingly members of the merchant class. Modern transportations were predominantly trains and steamships. Two-thirds of Canadian fortunes belonged to Montreal’s English community, and the majority of them were of Scottish origin. Most wealthy families lived in homes in the Golden Square Mile or Saint- Antoine neighbour hood (at the foot of the mountain).

1901 

Hugh Andrew Allan buys the Knoll. (Crane keeps part of the land for the Canadian Nursery).

He was the president of the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company (the official carrier of Royal Mail across the Atlantic, and whose oceanliners were the first to be equipped with turbines in 1904), and director of several other corporations (Halifax and East Railway, Grand Trunk Railway, Shipping Federation of Canada)

He was the husband of Margaret Elizabeth. Guests of the Allans would spend the day playing cricket, tennis or enjoying water sports. In the evening, lavish meals, dancing, card game, and business discussions were common. There was even a telephone line installed as soon as it was possible.

Their Montreal residence was on Stanley Street in the Golden Square Mile.

1911

Charles MacLean buys the Knoll and begins constructing a farm. He is the first to live in Pointe-Claire full time.  The farmhouse was ultramodern, made of stone, with heated marble floors, and they played classical music for the cows to get their the best quality of milk. 

This is one year after his first wife, Martha Fulford and their newborn, died. 

Charles was raised in Lachine, and joined the Canadian Army in 1904, and served overseas from 1914-1918 with the Scottish Light Dragoons.

1915-6

The Knoll is demolished to make way for living year round in Pointe-Claire.

Mull Hall is built, inspired by Fulford Place in Brockville, and named after the memory of Clan MacLean’s ancestral home on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Locally, it was called Château MacLean.

Robert Findlay was the architect of the neoclassical architecture building, with a symmetrical facade, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns, and a formal colonnaded veranda out back overlooking the water. The walls are made of locally quarried limestone blocks, and the roof was originally covered with cedar shingles. The facade was symmetrical, except for the main entrance portico adorned with columns. The colonnaded veranda was formal in taste.

1917

Charles marries Doris, his second wife, in London.

1919

They returned from Europe to settle at Mull Hull with their first child Ian.

They live as “gentlemen farmers”, for pleasure, with about 25 employees doing the work. 

1920

Morna MacLean was born at a rented suite at the Ritz Carlton.

1931

Muriel MacLean was born.

The children ate most meals in their nursery, on the second floor, with a dumbwaiter bringing up food from the kitchen. When Nannie had the day off, they enjoyed the solarium (located on the west side with a wrought iron frame) or winter garden, with parrots, dogs, and mischief in the fountain!

1940

The Religious of Holy Cross arrived in Montreal in 1847, and are still active internationally today. In Quebec, they founded College de Saint-Laurent, Montreal’s College Notre-Dame, Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal, and Les Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (theatre). Saint Brother Andre (born Alfred Bessette, and initiated the construction of Saint-Joseph’s oratory) is their congregation’s most famous member.

The priests buy Mull Hall, and turn it into a noviciate, and operate the farm. They moved from Sainte-Genevieve, and called it Saint Joseph Novitiate. 

The attic was used as a dormitory. 

The chapel was in the room next to the solarium (grand salon) with the altar facing north where the stage sits now.

The basement housed a workshop to make candles for the Oratory. 

They made no major changes except adding a statue of St. Joseph in front of the portico. 

They kept in use the volleyball and tennis courts. 

The initial price was “derisory”, and the farm fed the community with surplus eggs and milk sent to the Saint-Croix priests’ college (now Cegep St Laurent), but it became a financial burden as the student numbers dwindled.

The priests lived reclusively during the 17 years there.

1950s 

Montreal suburbs experience a boom, and farmland starts to be subdivided and sold to developers.

1957

Development Corporation buys the property, with plans to tear down the mansion and build high-rises (in 1959)

1958

The farm is destroyed in a fire, and the abandoned Mull Hall suffers serious damage during the winter.

1959

Walter Montcrieff and “May” Beatrice Stewart (born in Jamaica, trained as nurse in Edinburgh) lived as neighbours to the MacLeans for nearly a decade just east of Mull House (now Stewart Avenue). They buy the property before the demolition occurred. 

Walter was heir to the Macdonald Tobacco fortune (shared with his brother Thomas Howard, their father Sir William Macdonald). He was the sole head of the business from the 1920s to 1968.

 He met May at the Royal Victoria Hosptial, and were philanthropists, donating to  Macedonian College, McGill University and the RVH. May wanted to save the MacLean house. They bought it anonymously before it could be demolished.

On September 12, the Stewarts sell it to the City of Pointe-Claire for $1, with the understanding that it would be developed as a park, and maintained in perpetuity.

The city opened dialogue with the citizens of Pointe-Claire to decide the future use of this newly acquired building. Vi Duncanson headed the committee that proposed to use it as a cultural Center, which the city accepts. The goals were to make culture more democratic and to provide access to high quality courses and content. 

1962 

Stewart Hall Cultural Center opens, with Vi(olet) Duncanson as the administrative director. She involved Jean-Paul Morissette (director of National Art Gallery), Evan Turner (director of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), and Winthrop Judkins (McGill University professor and art historian) in the designing of the first policies. She hired Helen Judkins and Ruth Auersperg to develop the culture programs and art gallery.

It was inaugurated in 1963 by Governor General George Vanier.

It was remodelled with a new roof, HVAC, and to house the new functions. The third floor became the Art Gallery, the second a library, and the ground floor and basement housed various associations. Because of the Cold War, the Pointe-Claire Rifle Club was among the first, with a shooting gallery set up in the basement! Other groups included Claycrafters Pottery Studio, Lakeshore Weavers Guild, Lakeshore Camera Club, and The Stewart Hall Seniors.

1967

Art Rental and Sales Service starts and continues to present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archives of the Lake St. Louis Historical Society 

City of Pointe-Claire Archives

Stewart Hall Archives

Album universal, Vol.22, no.1113, pp.560-561, Sept. 2, 1905 Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec