The Manoir Richelieu, in the early 20th century.
© Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, Belle-Lavoie coll., bl0568.
The first Manoir Richelieu was built in 1899 by the Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Co.in Pointe-au-Pic (now La Malbaie) on the site of an older hotel, the Chamard’s Lorne House, inaugurated in 1878.
The new hotel offered 250 rooms, making it one of the largest summer colony hotels on the continent. Two architects designed the plans: the American George Shattuck and the Canadian Edward Maxwell. The building burned to the ground in fall 1928.
Did you see the fence? Inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, craftspeople built it by piecing very simple lengths of wood together to create a variety of geometric patterns.