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Nearly three years after its last resident left, the historic Fulford Residence building on Guy St. has, as promised, been granted heritage protection.
Built in 1859 for James Edward Major, a government inspector of potash, the building was later home for more than a century to vulnerable women until its last resident moved out in June 2021. As the three-storey brick building at 1221 Guy St. sat vacant — the result of declining occupancy and thus, revenue — community concern grew over its future.
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Quebec Culture and Communications Minister Mathieu Lacombe announced the heritage designation on Friday, citing the property’s architectural and historical values. The government first announced its intention to classify the property as a heritage building in August 2022, proposing at the time to also apply the designation to some of the building’s interiors, which were deemed of particular architectural integrity and interest.
Heritage Montreal had made the request for protection with its founding president, Phyllis Lambert, and welcomed the announcement at the time.
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Friday’s announcement acknowledged the building’s rich history, both architectural and social, noting that it had been home to single immigrant women, teachers and governesses and later to elderly women.
“The James-Edward-Major house, through its architecture and its location in the urban fabric of Montreal, bears witness not only to the development of an important district of the metropolis during the second half of the 19th century, but also to the mobilization of an entire community around a charitable vocation,” Lacombe said in a statement. “The classification as a heritage building aims to ensure its protection to promote its transmission to future generations.”
Last year, as the fate of the building remained unclear, Serge Sasseville, independent city councillor for the Ville-Marie borough’s Peter-McGill district, expressed concern about it being left to rot.
“When you don’t occupy a heritage house, the decay begins,” he said at the time.
That concern has only grown a year later, Sasseville said Friday.
“So, I am delighted with the minister’s decision, because it really is an important building,” he said. “It is the only bourgeois brick building that is from the origin of the foundation of the Golden Square Mile that exists.”
The building was up for sale last year, but negotiations were not made public. Sasseville said Friday he hasn’t been made aware of a sale, but said he’s in favour of women’s organization Chez Doris acquiring it “to continue the social mission” of the residence.
With files from the Montreal Gazette’s Susan Schwartz.
kthomas@postmedia.com
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