Lower Westmount.The Story!

McGuigan Pepin's Brokers have been selling homes in Lower Westmount since the early 70's, that's over 50 years of success and stories. These were the first properties built in Westmount.

Did you know that Joan McGuigan sold her first home in Lower Westmount on Columbia for $15,000.

Guess what that property is worth today?

Wow , how the markets have changed.

Please see the Story in WestmountMag of Lower Westmount by M. Walsh.

"La Petite Montagne" begins in Lower Westmount

and McGuigan Pepin's Legacy in real estate started there also.

Westmount places: Early development

Familiar places in Westmount that were part of the City’s initial urbanization

By Michael Walsh

Previously published in WestmountMag.ca

I always enjoy walking our dog through Lower Westmount and admiring the houses that adorn the streets — historically, each has a different story to tell. But what exactly is “Lower Westmount”? Most people think that the area south of Sherbrooke Street (running east and west) defines Lower Westmount, and the northern portion comprises Upper Westmount.

The real story, however, is much more interesting. It began approximately 11,000 years ago when the glaciers began to retreat from the Saint Lawrence region. Their weight depressed the continental crust below sea level, causing the Atlantic Ocean to form the Champlain Sea that covered Ontario, Quebec, New York and Vermont. This area remained as the sea’s floor for over 2,500 years until the land rebounded to a higher level, causing the sea to retreat. (Interestingly, in 1849, a Beluga Whale was unearthed in Charlotte, Vermont, during construction of the state’s first railway.)

The Champlain Sea’s retreat defined Westmount’s current topography, which is, in fact, four distinct areas that are situated below the third (and smallest) peak of Mount Royal. These areas are: the mountain’s slope to the Boulevard, the escarpment that extends from the Boulevard to Sherbrooke Street, a plateau between Sherbrooke Street and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and another escarpment that terminates at Saint Antoine, which is also the city’s southern limit.

‘… the history of Westmount is that of the urbanization of the small town of Côte St-Antoine, later incorporated into the City of Westmount, and its expansion from the southeast, from the mid 1800’s until 1914, the beginning of the First World War.’

The first official establishment of French settlers on the territory was by the Sulpician Fathers. In 1684, they built the Seminary of St. Sulpice of the Fort Des Messieurs. Although the actual building is east of the current city limits, the land owned by the Sulpician Fathers extended far westward. The Sulpician Fathers divided the land into the long, narrow north-south strips and distributed the parcels to French farmers. This land subdivision is apparent in the current street grid in Westmount and is common across the Island of Montreal.

After the English conquest in 1763, prominent English and Scottish businessmen started developing the agricultural lands to serve as their country estates or summer homes. By the 1840s, affluent families started making their primary homes in the territory of Westmount, thereby creating one of Montreal’s first suburban communities. Development spread first along the plateau and sprinkled up the mountainside. Today, the building and population densities are concentrated on the plateau in Lower Westmount, while large single-family homes on large lots cover the mountain slope in Upper Westmount.

During the decades between 1875 and 1895, the territory, now defined as Westmount, went through many incarnations. Specifically, streets were paved, water and electrical lines installed, and street railway lines were constructed. The city was a part of Notre-Dame-de-Grace, an English enclave, until it separated in 1879 and formed its own municipal boundaries as the Village of Cote-Saint-Antoine. Then in 1890, it became the Town of Cote-Saint-Antoine, only to be renamed the City of Westmount five years later.

‘Today the building and population densities are concentrated on the plateau in Lower Westmount, while large single-family homes on large lots cover the mountain slope in Upper Westmount.’

From here, the story moves to the urbanization of the Town of Côte St-Antoine, later incorporated as the City of Westmount. This initially occurred in the south-eastern area between the mid-1800s and 191,4 which marked the beginning of World War One.

Stay tuned for more neighbourhood news and history.

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