Hamwood

George Hamilton came from a well-known Anglo-Irish family and with his brother emigrated to Upper Canada where they made their fortune as lumber barons at Hawkesbury. Lucy's mother, Susannah Coffin, was a Loyalist from Boston. In 1850, Mrs Hamilton purchased this property from one J.M. Leavycraft and set about building a "charming residence" for herself and her younger children. Her two-story villa featured a wrap-around verandah on the ground floor which was accessed by a succession of floor-to-ceiling French windows offering magnificent views over the Laurentians.

Hamilton of Hamwood

Mrs Hamilton died in 1857 and left the house to her eldest son, Robert Hamilton (1822-1898). He named it "Hamwood" for the Palladian mansion in County Meath, Ireland, built by his paternal grandfather in 1768. On inheriting the house, Robert set about enlarging it to plans drawn up by architect Edward Staveley (1795-1872), noted for his design of Domaine Cataraqui for Hamilton's friend, James Bell Forsyth (1802-1869).

Robert Hamilton - who is often styled "of Hamwood" - continued the timber business started by his father while living at Hamwood with his wife, Isabella Thomson, and their seven children, all of whom were born at the three-story country mansion. In 1863, a description of the Hamilton's home gave an idea of its gardens and comfortable interior:

On Robert's death, the house passed to his only surviving son, John Hamilton (1851-1939), who like his father before him had continued the family's profitable timber business. John had married Ida Mary Buchanan and followed in the footsteps of his wife's maternal grandfather - Chief Justice Edward Bowen - when he was elected Chancellor of Bishop's University (1900 to 1926). The widow of John's first cousin lived at Drummond House, the first Richardsonian Romanesque mansion to be put up in Montreal.

Villa Manrese & Demolition

In 1921, as old age crept up on John and Ida Hamilton, and with their four daughters living happily elsewhere, they sold the family seat to the Compagnie de Jesus, who renamed it Villa Manrese after the chapter's original seminary which they had outgrown. In 1946, the monks added a fourth floor and made several further extensions (five in total) until they sold it in 1978 in favour of a more modern home - the present Villa Manrese. It was demolished in 1982 to make way for an apartment block.