Montreal developed as a geographically disparate patchwork of independent municipalities. Many of these old towns and suburbs were long ago absorbed into the city, but traces of their past character can still be seen in their streets.
Last week, Guillaume St-Jean wrote about three one-storey buildings in Villeray that will be demolished for condos. Clad in brick, these kinds of flat-roofed brick houses were built mostly in the 1910s and 1920s in the neighbourhoods north of the CPR tracks, like Little Italy, Park Ex, Villeray and Youville (an old village in what is now northern Villeray and southern Ahuntsic). I’ve always found them funny because they look like triplexes missing their top floors.
In the east end, it’s not unusual to find another type of one-storey building: old woodframe cottages, many of them set well back from the street in contrast to the plexes that surround them. That’s the case on Joliette Street in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, where I spotted the two houses above. According to the city’s property bank, the green house was built in 1910. You wouldn’t know it from the vinyl siding.
I’m curious to know who built these houses and why. Were they too poor to invest in a full-fledged duplex or triplex, which were far more lucrative? Did they simply predate the mass development of plexes?
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Especially in Hochelaga, I’ve noticed a lot of these one story houses that look considerably newer than the surrounding ‘plexes. They have that sort of weird art deco architecture that you see in places like east St-Michel or older parts of the West Island. I’ve always wondered why they built rows of these buildings rather than building detached plexes.
One-storey art deco houses? Maybe you could post a photo because I’m having a art time visualizing what you’re talking about.
The newer parts of Homa (I can’t believe people actually call it that now, but Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is a mouthful) up towards Sherbrooke have a lot of the 1940s-style apartment buildings, houses and plexes that you see more often in outer Rosemont, St. Michel and Ahuntsic.
There’s actually quite an astonishingly wide range of housing types in that area.
They’re not exactly art deco per say but there’s definitely art deco influence. I don’t think I have any photos of them on my computer but I’ll take a look. if I don’t have any, I’ll take a picture next time I see one. the ones that I’m thinking of are probably the same 1940s-style apartments you’re talking about. maybe I’m completely wrong in saying they have art deco influence.
Est-ce que ces maisons ne faisaient pas partie des ces bungalows qu’on a construit après la guerre pour les vétérans de l’armée? J’ai déjà entendu parler de ce projet mais je ne suis pas vraiment au courant.
Non, les maisons de vétérans sont assez distinctes et, autant que je sache, il n’y en a pas à Hochelaga. Les maisons dont je parle ont été construits au début du 20e siècle.
Go to the corner of Joliquer and Angers in Cote Saint Paul and you will see lots of one story houses, though many of them have various additions on them, and they all have a bit of land around them.
Development on the outskirts of the city — Plateau, Villeray, Petite-Patrie and to a lesser extent Hochelaga and Maisonneuve — was typically carried out house-by-house by poorer tradesmen and artisans. They would build their own triplexes with whatever labor and materials they could afford in whatever time they could spare, and the process often took a couple of years. Often they couldn’t shell out for a full triplex or duplex at first and built the one-storey buildings, which now mostly survive in Villeray and other areas north of the tracks, adding floors when they had the money and wherewithal to do so.
Sometimes they would build smaller 1- or 2-storey wooden houses first, which were frequently moved to the rear of the lot and used as workshops, stables, or tenements when the permanent building was completed. This pattern is clearly visible in the insurance maps and particularly the BNQ’s Goad maps, where there’s a street full of small wooden houses replaced by larger brick or stone buildings with wooden rear outbuildings ten years later.
My mother’s parents immigrated from Eastern Europe at the turn of the XXth century. I was told that these one-storey houses were built by early Eastern European immigrants in what was then vast empty spaces of fields where they started up mini-farms, cows, chickens, gardens… you name it! As more people came in, more buildings crept up on these dollhouses until they were smothered by construction.