haha I’ve always thought this would make an excellent Halloween haunted house!
A distant relative of mine once owned this house. His name was Frank Jarvis, and he was the personal assistant to General E.L.M. Burns during the Second World War. Being his personal assistant, he accompanied Canada’s top ranking officer all over the world. Thus, this house, for many years, was a testament to the power of the British Empire. Among the wide variety of antiques and rare collectibles and paraphernalia were gifts from Emperor Haile Selasse of Abyssinia (in addition to many ‘war trophies’).
Frank was an oddball by anyone’s account, which is why, for a period of at least twenty years, he kept a department store mannequin dressed in a Union Jack and Pith Helmet in the top floor window facing the street. At night, a lone dim lightbulb focused soft yellow light on what Frank described as the ‘ghost of Ann Boelyn’.
Speaking of westmount, some good westmount topics:
the assorted hillside stairs up to the Westmount summit. These are amazing and (healthy) walks.
The stairs/walkway at the Westmount summit lookout has been completely redone (very) recently (with some controversial tree chopping).
Taylor…what a great story!
This is a beautifully composed and exposed photograph.
I quite agree.
Anyone know the history of this house. What street is it on?
It was built in 1880 at the corner of Côte-St-Antoine and Claremont street.
i used to walk by this house on my daily walk to school(1960-1962), st leon in westmount and it reminded me of the “psycho” house, although larger. it was painted red and cream, not really doing it justice.
There was a famous Mr Jarvis on Victoria street, just down from Côte-St-Antoine. Is this the same house? Is this the house where Radio-Canada host Jacques Languirand has lived?
Ah –
I may be mistaken, I’ve confused the two before. I seem to remember Frank’s place being near the Hurtubise Farm.
The Hurtubise farm is at the corner of Côte St-Antoine and Victoria – so the Jarvis house is the Victorian pile on the North West corner. I think!
I lived directly beside the house in the photo between 1966-1970 – you can just see the edge of the house in shadow on the photo. I *think* it was once part of the Décarie properties… but am not sure. I also have a vague recollection of my mother calling this house the Hurtubise house…
At the time it was (and still is) painted cream and red. It was used as some kind of old folks home & there were always a bunch of rockers with people in them on the side porch (that you can’t see in the photo), on the west side of the house, overlooking our back yard. It also used to have a wrought-iron fence all the way around it, and those bushes that have big white berries on them. The fence was very low where it connected with our back yard, so that was our short-cut to Claremont… always a creepy little sprint through a dank overgrown space!
This house was never quite as creepy as the Victorian on the corner of Victoria and Côte St-Antoine, though At the time, was painted black and was very shrubbed-in, unlike now where you can actually see the house and its details. Maybe Mr Jarvis was still there? We would avoid it at Hallowe’en…
Oh yes, the infamous red and cream creepy house. I lived a few blocks away for many years. I thought it was abandoned for so long because there was never (and I mean never) any light coming from it at night, except from the basement window. Rumour has it that about 10 years ago Madonna was filming in that house.
I’m surprised no one has documented the four-leaf clover (near st-patrick’s day, too….) that one of the lights at the intersection has. Corner Côte-Ste-Antoine + Victoria. Or, for that matter, the beautiful pink house one block west of this one. Or the “hidden” farmhouse on Vendôme, just north of CSA. Or the house on CSA with what seems like a mini-princess tower. Or, the crazy huge three story houses near Villa-Maria metro, on Brillon st.
I could go on forever, this area is spacing-fertile…in my opinion/imagination anyway.
Westmount was also the home to the Canadian relatives of Irish national Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. In fact I took Dacre Stoker, his great grand-nephew, to see the house there where he grew up and would play with the Molson children. Mr. Stoker was in town for the launch of the first new Dracula novel in over 100 years and I took him around and showed him his old haunts.
Also the corner of Cote St. Antoine and Metcalfe, near the historic Shaare Hashomayim Congregation, is where a group of Habs dropped off their recently-won Stanley Cup and forgot it there, driving away for two hours before returning to pick it up. This was in the early 1930s.
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haha I’ve always thought this would make an excellent Halloween haunted house!
A distant relative of mine once owned this house. His name was Frank Jarvis, and he was the personal assistant to General E.L.M. Burns during the Second World War. Being his personal assistant, he accompanied Canada’s top ranking officer all over the world. Thus, this house, for many years, was a testament to the power of the British Empire. Among the wide variety of antiques and rare collectibles and paraphernalia were gifts from Emperor Haile Selasse of Abyssinia (in addition to many ‘war trophies’).
Frank was an oddball by anyone’s account, which is why, for a period of at least twenty years, he kept a department store mannequin dressed in a Union Jack and Pith Helmet in the top floor window facing the street. At night, a lone dim lightbulb focused soft yellow light on what Frank described as the ‘ghost of Ann Boelyn’.
Speaking of westmount, some good westmount topics:
the assorted hillside stairs up to the Westmount summit. These are amazing and (healthy) walks.
The stairs/walkway at the Westmount summit lookout has been completely redone (very) recently (with some controversial tree chopping).
Taylor…what a great story!
This is a beautifully composed and exposed photograph.
I quite agree.
Anyone know the history of this house. What street is it on?
It was built in 1880 at the corner of Côte-St-Antoine and Claremont street.
i used to walk by this house on my daily walk to school(1960-1962), st leon in westmount and it reminded me of the “psycho” house, although larger. it was painted red and cream, not really doing it justice.
There was a famous Mr Jarvis on Victoria street, just down from Côte-St-Antoine. Is this the same house? Is this the house where Radio-Canada host Jacques Languirand has lived?
Ah –
I may be mistaken, I’ve confused the two before. I seem to remember Frank’s place being near the Hurtubise Farm.
The Hurtubise farm is at the corner of Côte St-Antoine and Victoria – so the Jarvis house is the Victorian pile on the North West corner. I think!
I lived directly beside the house in the photo between 1966-1970 – you can just see the edge of the house in shadow on the photo. I *think* it was once part of the Décarie properties… but am not sure. I also have a vague recollection of my mother calling this house the Hurtubise house…
At the time it was (and still is) painted cream and red. It was used as some kind of old folks home & there were always a bunch of rockers with people in them on the side porch (that you can’t see in the photo), on the west side of the house, overlooking our back yard. It also used to have a wrought-iron fence all the way around it, and those bushes that have big white berries on them. The fence was very low where it connected with our back yard, so that was our short-cut to Claremont… always a creepy little sprint through a dank overgrown space!
This house was never quite as creepy as the Victorian on the corner of Victoria and Côte St-Antoine, though At the time, was painted black and was very shrubbed-in, unlike now where you can actually see the house and its details. Maybe Mr Jarvis was still there? We would avoid it at Hallowe’en…
Oh yes, the infamous red and cream creepy house. I lived a few blocks away for many years. I thought it was abandoned for so long because there was never (and I mean never) any light coming from it at night, except from the basement window. Rumour has it that about 10 years ago Madonna was filming in that house.
I’m surprised no one has documented the four-leaf clover (near st-patrick’s day, too….) that one of the lights at the intersection has. Corner Côte-Ste-Antoine + Victoria. Or, for that matter, the beautiful pink house one block west of this one. Or the “hidden” farmhouse on Vendôme, just north of CSA. Or the house on CSA with what seems like a mini-princess tower. Or, the crazy huge three story houses near Villa-Maria metro, on Brillon st.
I could go on forever, this area is spacing-fertile…in my opinion/imagination anyway.
Westmount was also the home to the Canadian relatives of Irish national Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. In fact I took Dacre Stoker, his great grand-nephew, to see the house there where he grew up and would play with the Molson children. Mr. Stoker was in town for the launch of the first new Dracula novel in over 100 years and I took him around and showed him his old haunts.
Also the corner of Cote St. Antoine and Metcalfe, near the historic Shaare Hashomayim Congregation, is where a group of Habs dropped off their recently-won Stanley Cup and forgot it there, driving away for two hours before returning to pick it up. This was in the early 1930s.