Terrace Bank

In 1836, he purchased this 235-acre estate on the slopes of Mount Royal for £10,000 from the Desrivières family, heirs of James McGill through his wife's first marriage. He maintained the old Desrivières house which he gave to his daughter, Mrs Elizabeth Dougall (1819-1883). Redpath then subdivided the property making a profit of £25,000 while making little infringement on the space he kept for himself. He built his house on a substantial estate set amidst gardens and orchards with a drive that ran up to the house from the gate lodge at the corner of Mountain and Sherbrooke streets. In 1837, he wrote,

I have left my house in town and am residing on the Des Rivieres property on the mountain which I purchased last fall... the situation is delightful and my time is occupied in improving the property which... suits my tastes to live private and retiring...

Building his own substantial house that he named "Terrace Bank," it was given the appearance seen in the image before between 1861 and 1864 when it was both enlarged and given a Gothic makeover. Whether the old house was incorporated into the new house, or it was razed and rebuilt from scratch is up for discussion. Either way, a plan of the house already known as 'Terrace Bank' in 1841 shows that its facade and the front steps leading up the front door was a mirror image of the house seen above.

The work was carried out by Montreal's pre-eminent mansion building architect of the period, John W. Hopkins (1825-1905), and the similarities between Terrace Bank and the likes of Ravenscrag and Iononteh are immediately apparent.

After Redpath died, he made provision for his widow to remain in the house. Jane was joined here from 1883 until 1890 by her nephew, the architect Andrew Thomas Taylor who was encouraged to emigrate to Montreal by Jane's stepson, Peter Redpath, then Governor of McGill University. Jane died at Terrace Bank in 1907. John Redpath had perhaps hoped that Peter would one day take up residence here, but after donating over a million dollars to McGill University, he and his wife left Montreal and settled in England at the Manor House in Chislehurst, Kent. 

Redpath's 37-room mansion was sited almost precisely where Colonel Herbert Molson's house (today the Russian Consulate) stands today and the grounds were roughly bounded by Sherbrooke Street to the south; Mount Royal Park to the north; Mountain Street to the east; and, Redpath Street to the west. Another road, Doctor Penfield, was later cut through the former property and it falls almost exactly where the front steps to the old mansion once stood.

From 1907, the contents of the house were divided between Redpath's children or sold at auction. The Terrace Bank estate was sold for $300,000, the property was developed and by 1911 the house was razed. However, the grounds behind the house were acquired by the City of Montreal and today constitute a significant portion of Mount Royal Park.