Intriguing mansions | Story Collector

I have a feeling of deja vu. The further I go towards the suggested address, the more I seem to recognize the place.

After reading one of my columns on the astonishing houses of the metropolis, a man named Jean-Robert wrote to me that a house hidden in an alley in the Milton-Parc district would please me.

I take advantage of an afternoon where the sun makes us believe in spring to go there and the closer I get, the more I have the impression of having already been in the area. When I finally see the building, I burst out laughing.

I grab my phone: “Lorenz, you won’t believe this, but I’m in front of your house. »

A year ago, a colleague admitted to me that she was fascinated by an old house.

The immense building seemed vaguely abandoned. The front door was boarded up. Birds came and went behind the foundation latticework. The white of the slats had been soiled by time. Let’s just say that this isn’t the house we’re going to spontaneously knock on if we run out of gas. (Unless you’re in a horror movie.)

As no one answered me, I left a letter. Weeks later, the owner of the place called me back, but I was busy. I wrote to him, then I had no news. In short, missed appointment.

And now a completely different reader takes me home.

Lorenz Luthe invites me in as if he was waiting for me.

In the entryway, a large fabric features a roaring tiger. “The Hagenbeck Zoo had not yet been bombed when my grandmother weaved this,” slips the owner of the place as he guides me towards the living room.

The room is warm with its fireplace, its huge bookcases, its wooden beams and its desk bathed in light. I am frankly surprised.

The 75-year-old retiree bought the building in 1978, while he was studying for a master’s degree in mathematics and statistics at McGill University. A friend had lived in the second floor apartment for years and Lorenz loved the place. When he learned that the owner (who lived with her 13 cats on the ground floor) wanted to get rid of it, he immediately tried his luck.

He wasn’t the only one to do it. But he was the only one ready to let the woman with 13 felines stay there as long as she wanted. Market concluded for the sum of $10,500.

The house was built in 1875, according to the interactive tool created by journalist Roberto Rocha (CBC News). The first purchase agreement held by Lorenz Luthe dates back to 1883. I spend many minutes leafing through the paperwork, impressed by the number of lives that have passed here.

Consult the interactive tool on the CBC website (in English)

Lorenz moved into the house five years after purchasing it. He raised his family there and made many renovations. He opened up the main floor, created mezzanines and converted a closet into a kitchenette/bathroom. The place is super compact, but packed with storage nuggets, including a built-in dish rack, a removable hotplate, and a bathtub hidden behind wooden blinds.

It feels like you’re on a boat.

The man has also accumulated regatta trophies. It was his father who taught him to sail.

Wolfgang Luthe was drafted into the German army during World War II. Refusing to let his sons in turn undergo compulsory military service, he settled in Quebec, where a job awaited him at the University of Montreal. Lorenz was 3 years old when the family settled in the metropolis. His father then made his mark by popularizing autogenic training, a relaxation method akin to self-hypnosis. He is known.

It was Lorenz who told me about the war. I’m the one who searched for the rest. Surprising, considering that the man lives surrounded by family memories.

Creations from her weaver grandmother adorn the walls of the living room. Nearby, a painting that belonged to his mother. In the library to my right, clocks passed down from generation to generation. On the stairs leading to the mezzanine where his bed rests, two large dolls. Her sister collected them, “they were her children, in a way”.

“Is it important to keep these traces?

– Very important. That’s my fear, actually. What will happen if I die? There are 200 years of history here. »

Lorenz Luthe does not believe that his daughters will take over from the old centenarian who is asking for reparation after reparation. It remains to be seen what will happen to what it preserves within its walls.

He breaks the silence by pointing to the pieces of glass on his desk. He creates stained glass windows. On the second floor, above the door of a small abandoned kitchen, a stained glass window shows fruits and vegetables. In the dusty corridor, another has a spider web. At the window of the room that was once a flourishing office, roses.

Lorenz decorated his house with themed creations.

It was also he who made the stained glass windows on the facade of the house. If the door is boarded up, it means that this stained glass window needs repair. Silly as well.

I had seen a disturbing house. Rather, it was the lair of an artisan who collects stories in the hope that someone will one day take over.

A quick word about the community. It was Mark West, whom I met during a previous intriguing house visit, who introduced me to the CBC News tool for dating Montreal buildings. I had dinner with Natalija and him a few weeks ago. I hope I managed to become their friend. A few days earlier, I attended the meeting of several people who lived in the yellow house about which I also wrote a column. They spent the afternoon sharing anecdotes and knowledge, notably thanks to the research carried out by Myriam Bouroche. How sweet to knock on strangers’ doors and come out of there guessing that it was only the beginning…

Read the column “A secret too well kept”

Read the column “The flamboyant, alley of widows”