Montrose

Sir H. Montagu Allan was the second son but principal heir of Sir Hugh Allan, Chairman of the Allan Shipping Line that under him and his brothers in Scotland was said to have become the largest privately-owned shipping firm in North America. Montagu rose to become Deputy Chairman of the Allan Line, but he was President of the family bank, the Merchant's Bank of Canada. His wife, Marguerite, had roots both in Montreal and Massachusetts, and was described as having, "a taste for adventure and a mischievous sense of humour". They summered here from mid-June to mid-September but otherwise lived with their four children at their 72-room home in Montreal, Ravenscrag.

All-In

In 1893, Montagu sold his share in Belmere, his childhood summer home on Lake Memphremagog, and for the next few summers came to Cacouna five miles north of Rivière-du-Loup with his first cousin, Andrew A. Allan, where they both rented various cottages before deciding to remain at what had by then become known as, "the Saratoga of Canada". His immediate neighbours included some of the most influential names in Canadian business, eg. Sir George Drummond, Leslie Hamilton Gault, John F. Burstall, etc.

Andrew's father (Montagu's uncle Andrew) had been the first in their family to build a summer cottage at Cacouna in 1865, but it had since been sold to Matthew Hamilton Gault. Montagu rented the Pelletier house for three seasons and then the Ross house (subsequently bought by Andrew) for another three seasons before deciding to build something of his own with a little more space. He bought the estate of the late Major Campbell - whose father Dr. George William Campbell had put Cacouna on the map - and enlarged it with the purchase of further land to the north from Narcisse Lebel.

House & Grounds

Built entirely of wood, Montrose was started in 1899 and was complete by the following year. Its 26-rooms were spread out across three stories and there were long, wide verandas on both sides of the house. The rooms included: 2-sitting rooms; a large dining room; 9-bedrooms for family and guests; 8-bedrooms for live-in staff; 6-bathrooms; and, 8-hallways. Following the classical fashion of the time, the interior was Adam-esque in style but its walls were covered in floral chintz that reflected the more old-fashioned Victorian preferences. However, these did not last long and were stripped out in 1913-14 when the firm of Hogle & Davis (Andrew Taylor's successors since his return to England in 1904) added a new wing and then redecorated throughout, overseen by J.S. Dion, of Montreal.

There was a separate building with a garage for 5-cars, a squash court, 2-bedrooms and a bathroom. The stables were built with a gambrel roof in the American Dutch Colonial style and other outbuildings included the gardener's cottage, a boathouse and bath-house with 6-changing rooms. The summer house that acted as a further guesthouse sat on the highest part of the property on the top of a 200-foot hill and was built in the French Colonial style with 4-bedrooms, a bathroom, dining room and spacious sitting room.

The grounds included formal parterre gardens, a kitchen garden, orchards, 3-lawn tennis courts, and a circular, balustraded viewing platform from which to appreciate the famous sunsets that fell over the water and behind the Charlevoix mountains on the opposite shore. An artesian well fed the house and all the outbuildings with a fresh supply of hot and cold water via an electric pump that filled the cisterns at a 1,000-gallons an hour.

Making Merry, or Making for Murray

The Allans would arrive by train from Montreal accompanied by a mountain of baggage, horses, cars, and the necessary retinue of staff - although not the full retinue of 19 that they required at Ravenscrag. The "lively and intelligent" - half American - Lady Allan spent the season hosting a whirl of dinners, dances, concerts, picnics, tennis and croquet tournaments. Among the house-guests who stayed with them here were four Governors-General, notably Viscount Willingdon in 1929 and Lord Bessborough in 1932.

Not everyone approved of Lady Allan's lead at Cacouna, James G.A. Creighton found there was, "too much dancing and dressing that characterise American watering-places". Lady Allan on the other hand was often known to escape across the river to livelier Murray Bay when she found things to have gotten too quiet or monotonous. At Murray Bay, she could enjoy the band at the Hotel Richelieu, taking in some bridge with different faces, and a round or two of golf with, among others, her American friends U.S. President William Howard Taft and Francis Higginson Cabot who both kept summer cottages there.

The Tragic End of the Allan Line

World War I all but broke the Allans. Like everyone else, they started the war full of enterprise and optimism but tragedy first struck in 1915 when Lady Allan was unable to save her two youngest teenage daughters (Gwen and Anna) who drowned when their steamship, the Lusitania, was infamously torpedoed by the Germans. Two years later, their only son, Hugh, was killed in his first combat mission with the Royal Naval Air Service. Their only surviving daughter, Martha, would live on unmarried until 1942 but she too predeceased her parents when she succumbed to ill-health, an indirect victim of the same war having caught pneumonia as a nurse and ambulance driver in France.

From Parties to Prayer

Despite their personal tragedy and the collapse of the family-owned bank, the Merchant's Bank, the Allans kept up a brave face and after selling off their weekend home, Allancroft, managed to retain Ravenscrag and Montrose with some semblance of the old days. They enjoyed their last summer here in 1940, placing it on the market in May, 1941, for $16,000 - a considerable and brutal drop from the $100,000 it had cost to build, let alone run.

The owners of La Rochelle House in nearby Rivière-du-Loup made an offer to convert it into a luxury hotel, but the financing fell through, and in October, 1941, the Allans sold it for the full asking price to the Friars of the Capuchin Franciscan Order who the following year (1942) spent a further $25,000 converting it into a monastery and training college. From 1980, it was repurposed into a house of prayer and named "Le Cenacle" and more recently still they have put up a small but permanent exhibition dedicated to the Allan family's life at Montrose. Visitors are welcome, but silence is to be respected.