The owner’s tour | Pieces unchanged since 1925 in Verdun

Owners open the doors of their exceptional residence to us, offered on the resale market.

Christine Desjardins
special collaboration

Don’t change anything. Maintain with care, but keep things as they have always been. Resist fashions and urges to modernize your decor. Difficult, impossible? Not for Monique Scheffer, owner of this nearly century-old quintuplex in Verdun.

“Oh no, never! exclaims Monique when asked if she has ever thought of changing the decor of the rooms we are currently in. Stained glass windows, oak paneling, artistically worked and patinated walls, dressers, wooden floors with patterns… On the ground floor of this noble building on rue Wellington, all the front rooms, including the living room, dining dining room, the former notary’s office and its waiting room are original. The brushstroke? They don’t know. Even the burgundy carpet in the old waiting room, still surprisingly soft, and the voile curtains are almost 100 years old. Speaking of curtains, after having gently washed them, Monique carefully combed the fringe, remember her daughters.

Younger than him…

Monique Scheffer is younger than her building. Three years apart, to be precise. It was a notary, Joseph-Hector Messier, who would later become his father-in-law, who had the building built in 1925 to live there with his family and practice his profession. It was so until he moved to Outremont in 1952. His son, Henri, who also became a notary, then took over the building in Verdun, with his young wife, Monique, here present. During the day, Henri practiced his profession in the rue Saint-Jacques and, in the evening, he did office work at home. Like his father before him. The ground floor had also been designed for that. Once closed, the glass doors in the hallway separated the office space from the rest of the apartment. Apart from the inscription “Ring the bell and enter”, which has disappeared, everything has practically remained as it is.

Walls like that, never retouched, it’s a rarity, no doubt about it. Joseph-Hector said that he had hired an ex-prisoner to shape them. The story does not say if the latter was a counterfeiter, but when you see the quality and the detail, you are led to believe it. Among other impressive techniques, we note the veining of a certain paneling, which makes us take for wood what supposedly is not. It would take a DNA test to prove it.

Restricted zone

Henri and Monique had three daughters: Louise, Francine and Nicole, who were also present during our visit. To see them laughing and chatting, we imagine that things must have been moving in that house. However, there were borders that should not be crossed. These rooms, which command admiration today, were reserved for notaries and large receptions. Everyday life, with its little and big follies, happened in the back and in the basement.

Modernizing, 50 years ago…

So let’s move forward… backwards, to see the rest of the house. Once past the bedrooms, which have not changed much either, we come to the living areas: the kitchen and the dining room, which also served as a boudoir. Here, in terms of layout, we are propelled back to the early 1970s. It was at this time that the last renovations took place. Monique now had a state-of-the-art kitchen, with two ovens and a dishwasher. It made things easier during the big Christmas parties, which brought together relatives, friends and tenants upstairs. We spread the buffet on the pool table in the basement and it was the partyremember the girls.

Meticulous maintenance

In addition to the main dwelling, and its equally large basement, the building has four five-and-a-half-room dwellings on the upper floors. One can imagine the upkeep… However, the building is obviously very well preserved. When something had to be repaired or changed, Joseph-Hector, and his son Henri after him, took care to preserve the style and the materials, underlines Francine, one of the daughters.

In 2002, the building won the residential emeritus prize of the Opération patrimoine architectural de Montréal, for the borough of Verdun. It was noted that “the remarkable state of conservation of the building was due to the careful maintenance on the part of the owner”.

Stay, leave…

After the death of her husband, Henri, in 2006, Monique remained in her huge house. For the interview, “I had a lot of help”, specifies the one who considers herself very “lucky” in life, and what is more to have spent this life in this beautiful house. Last summer, at age 93, however, she decided to go and live in a residence for the elderly. Two of his daughters, who occupied the upper apartments, are also leaving. Almost all the furniture left a few months ago during an estate sale. Despite the empty rooms, we feel that the soul of the Messier family still lives in the house. The ball gown that Monique made a long time ago, and which always looks pretty in a closet, may also have something to do with it…

Modernize

This property on Wellington Street is well maintained, and important elements have been redone, such as the roof and the furnaces of each of the five apartments, all of which are independently heated with water. But we understand that there is work to be done to modernize the interior, especially in terms of electricity. The copper push-buttons for lighting and the two-wire sockets here and there bear witness to this. But there is a way to modernize while retaining the cachet, believes the broker, Jonathan Saveriano, himself a fan of old art and architecture. “It’s rare to see a property of this quality in such good condition,” he says. It will always increase in value over time. »