Français
Welcome Page
Properties for sale
Regional History
Laurentian Place Names
What's It Worth
Associations
E-mail us

W

hy are some of the nicest old country homes built so far above the lake? Think of two of the better-known ones from the beginning of the last century, the Château Belvoir and the Frères Oblats, on the south side of Lac des Sables. Both of these large stone buildings were originally built as country properties and both owners, Mortimer Davis and Lorne McGibbon, acquired large expanses of land that included, in each case, dry, buildable peninsulas that jutted out into the lake, ideal waterfront locations. Why would they have invested so much to build so high above the water? Wasn't it the lake that drew them here in the first place?

Back then the Laurentians was still agricultural, the hillsides around the lakes were fields and the views from the hilltops would have been marvellous. Certainly the views would have been a consideration, maybe even the most important reason. There was also the added privacy that the distance from the lake would lend, although that privacy would be limited to the area around the house. The lakefront became a destination away from the home, like the golf course is. It would be a place that the family would go to and spend an extended portion of the day at. Getting to the lake (or back up from it) was a project that would not be undertaken on a whim.

There could also have been a certain level of prestige in being higher up. These were important people who would have been accustomed to seeing the greater society as a totality, something that they would relate to from an administrative perspective, having the habit of overseeing rather than being in the middle.

Another possible reason was the mindset of people in the nineteenth century regarding disease. These people's formative years were lived before the important discoveries of Pasteur and Koch. They would have learned from earliest childhood to stay away from dampness and fog, especially from open waters such as swamps and lakes, since it was felt that disease rose from these humid environments, that a miasma of noxious exhalations resided in the mist, especially during the night. They would have been conditioned to believe that it was healthier to maintain a safe distance from such risk.

In the publicity promoting Dr. Camille Laviolette's project to create a sanitarium on the upper slopes of Mont Tremblant in the 1890's, he writes: 'On the top of Mont Blanc, there is scarcely one microbe in a cubic yard of air; on the summit of the Eiger, at the height of 12,000 feet, there is not a single one; while in the valleys below, they swarm in millions.'

We must contemplate the way our ancestors lived in order to realise how the incremental changes that have taken place over the past century have profoundly changed our way of seeing the world. We no longer live in fear of the miasma, in fact, we barely use the word, but for them it was a real and threatening presence. What preconceptions do we live with that will seem as foreign to our children's grandchildren?

Return to What's it Worth index