One-Storey Houses
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 on Spacing Montreal 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?
Tags: Exploring the City, Housing, Montreal, Plexes
dream listener says:
i don’t have any answers for you christopher, but i too have noticed these small cottage type homes nestled between the regular triplexes. they almost seem like little hobbit homes, or something from another time and place. good spots to kick start the imagination…
October 11th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
Hobbit homes! If only…
October 11th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
“Jesse276″ wrote this in response to these photos on Flickr:
October 11th, 2007 at 11:41 pm