The wooded land on what's now Summit Park in Westmount hosted the grassy links of The Westmount Golf Club until about 1910.
These photos demonstrate that what's now super-expensive real estate was once a place where you might hear "FORE!" and "BIRD-eeee!!!" on a rambling golf course that sat on a plateau atop the hilly downtown-adjacent suburb.
Little was written about the club in newspapers but we are told that members attended an annual winter ball at the Windsor Hotel, as noted in an article from 1901.
In July 1905 the Westmount Golf Club beat competitors from the Beaconsfield club, with 22 players on each team battling it out.
The circumstances of its disappearance are not spelled out in any available newspaper article but it seems self-evident that people wanted to live in the area more than they wanted to whack balls there.
Much of the land that housed the golf course was sold off at an auction in October 1911.
Elsewhere in town Montreal West was busy removing the giant horse racing track that occupied a good chunk of its territory.
Similarly gone and forgotten is the Westmount Gun Club which rose and fell roughly around the same years. The only photo we see of the Westmount pistoleros,(at bottom) however, suggests that they met lower down the hill, perhaps at Murray Park. Hopefully there were no unfortunate incidents resulting in the golf and gun clubs meeting at the same space.
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| Westmount Gun Club c. 1900 |
Our Golf and Race Tracks - Part One:
ReplyDeleteThere used to be several golf links on the island of Montreal such as in Hampstead, TMR, Rosemount, St. Leonard, Cartierville, and within the eastern half of Maisonneuve Park--the majority of these grounds replaced by residential subdivisions. Those which have managed to survive to the present day, such as Meadowbrook (formerly Wentworth) in Cote St. Luc, routinely come under threat of reduction or closure by the proponents of condominium projects. Apparently, greedy eyes are never satisfied when it comes to the possibility of eliminating green spaces for the purpose of profit.
Incidentally, it is in fact illegal to whack golf balls within our city parks, and one can find pictogram signage--albeit miniscule in size--forbidding the practice. Despite this, I have on occasion seen scofflaws breaking this rule. Sometimes these thoughtless and reckless "duffers" will even become nasty if you politely bring this prohibition to their attention, and not acknowledging that someone could become seriously injured if hit by an unexpected golf ball, not to mention the unsightly gashes left in the field by their clumsy golf club swings.
Our Golf and Race Tracks - Part Two:
ReplyDeleteAbout Blue Bonnets, see the following quote taken from Wikipedia:
"In 1872, the Blue Bonnets Raceway for thoroughbred horse racing opened on the Jos. Decary farm in the easternmost part of the Blue Bonnets community, now Montreal West. In 1886, the Ontario and Quebec Railway (a company controlled by the Canadian Pacific Railway) cut the raceway in half. In 1905, John F. Ryan founded the Jockey Club of Montreal which on June 4, 1907, opened a new Blue Bonnets Raceway on Decarie Boulevard." [which closed in 2009 following bankruptcy].
For those who care to know, the original Montreal West Blue Bonnets raceway was located within cadastre 139 just west of Westminster Avenue on the tract of land where the housing along Strathearn and Wolseley Avenues exist today.
During the era when harness racing was highly popular, however, there was also the Richelieu track located at the eastern tip of the island upon the land where the residences built upon Eva-Gauthier and Pauline Donalda Avenues are now.
Sadly, considering the way our political correctness-obsessed generation has emerged, it is not too far a stretch of the imagination to predict that our legions of relentless animal activists will at some point manage to generate enough of a stink to force the elimination horse racing entirely undoubtedly by focusing their attention on instances of corruption as well as the unfortunate, if relatively rare, incidents of mistreatment, accidental injury, and the unforeseen sudden deaths of thoroughbreds due to pre-existing health conditions.
Witness these activists' controversial success in shutting down Montreal's historic caleches (although not in Quebec City--yet). The ?????????? is, however, that horses are easily trained as beasts of burden and have historically served humans well while, comparatively, zebras could not. For overly-emotional activists to publically portray caleche horses as "mistreated" because "they look sad, tired, and therefore overworked" is misleading and a symptom of our oversensitive times. Certainly horses--like all animals and humans--can and do get sick and die. It happens and life goes on. Notwithstanding, there are laws against animal cruelty and perpetrators are routinely and increasingly fined and even arrested.
I should mention here that greyhound racing has also recently become moribund in countries where it occurs as an organized sport, so don't be surprised to see it disappear as well. Otherwise, despite true incidents criminal behaviour and cruelty by ???????? dog handlers and owners, it certainly cannot be compared to the evil underground of illegal dog-fighting.
I will even go so far as to predict that some future generation of the "World of the Eternally Outraged" will see shrieking demands that the keeping of dogs and cats as pets is an "unnecessary form of animal slavery and abuse" with the potential result that the ownership of certain animals will become seriously curtailed by special licensing, if not banned outright, although admittedly in the real world this would be extremely difficult if not impossible to enforce. Might we someday even see dog-catchers being beaten up and even murdered by people determined to keep their cats, dogs, and others being removed from their possession.
Surely this is the stuff of science fiction novels? "C'mon, that's ridiculous! Such a thing can never happen!", you say? Overreactive fantasy? Perhaps, but while those reading this won't likely live to see such a day, based on current trends such a scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility. After all, haven't crazier laws been enacted within certain draconian societies and dictatorships during our often dark history?
Can anyone provide a vintage map indicating exactly where the Westmount Golf Club was located? Did it exist on a section of the grounds of what is now Villa Maria? Could it be that the houses in the photos either no longer exist or had since been upgraded to appear quite differently today?
ReplyDeleteVilla Maria's grounds were church property but the golf course sat on the relatively flat areas southwest of Summit Park. All the streets like Lexington, Surrey Gardens, Oakland, Gordon, Shorncliffe, the "Uppers" like Lansdowne and Roslyn above the Boulevard were in the golf course area. The curvy streets are more modern and the architecture is largely postwar. The straight "Uppers" were built on in the 20s largely.
ReplyDeleteNow that does makes more sense regarding the location of the former golf course, considering the relatively flat area upon which streets such as Surrey Gardens, Oakland, et al, exist.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, most of the east side of Surrey Gardens north of Shorncliffe has only been built upon in recent years with overly-large houses, the landscaping costs of which must be quite high, but I imagine the owners can afford it!
Furthermore, during the past few years two enormous new homes were built on the cliff just to the east of the Westmount Lookout.
Someone I spoke to who was standing near there during construction told me that they were built and presumably owned by Iranians, one of whom was/is a dentist. Pretty good for someone who is required to look inside people's mouths all day, I suppose--which is not a profession I would personally have chosen.
Parking and stopping restrictions and curfews have increased at the lookout as well following routine complaints to police by down-cliff residents of late night, drunken idiots throwing beer bottles and other debris onto their rooftops and possibly through their windows! Such a tempting target by jealous hooligans makes it an unfortunate location for the well-to-do.
Further east along Summit Circle can be seen below the famous Timmins House which in 1962 was "sawn in half". See:
http://devoraneumark.com/works/not_built_for_that/6-not_built_for_EXTRACTION.pdf
Last time I walked by there, from the street I noticed a sharp red Ferarri parked down in the rear of the western-most half.
Can anyone solve the following mystery? At the top end of Summit Crescent north of Devon, there is an abandoned house which, due to its proximity, everyone seems to assume was once the caretakers home for St. Joseph's Oratory. This seems unlikely, since for one thing according to boundary maps, the Oratory is in Montreal and the abandoned house is in Westmount, if that fact has any relevance.
Now, on the left side of this recently gravelled-over and now exclusively pedestrian pathway is a partially grown-over gate with no address number in evidence. Just a step north beyond this are the former "emergency gates" which opened onto the remnant of Kingston Road from where access can be gained to the Oratory itself or downhill westward toward Brother Andre's Chapel and then even further down to tbe pedestrian pathway to Cedar Crescent and Queen Mary Road.
So who previously lived in this house? When was it built and why hasn't it either been renovated or demolished?
Phone calls to a couple of real estate firms did not result in the identification of this house, nor does it appear in vintage editions of Lovell's Directory, although it's possible I may have overlooked it.
Incidentally, As I write this (June 11, 2019), considerable excavation work is being done to build a new restaurant, visitors' centre, and carillon bell tower for St. Joseph's, as well as, hopefully (before they make the usual excuse that they've run out of money!), the too-long-promised elevator access to the dome's cupola from which a truly spectacular view of the city will be seen. Currently, a webcam video of that view is watchable onscreen inside the easternmost doorway of the Crypt's entrance and although that video had previously been viewable online at the Oratory's website, it was later removed for some unknown reason. You'd think they'd be considerate enough to leave the video there?
I recently decided to investigate the derelict house of which you speak, near the Oratory. A vagrant type character emerged from around the corner and I told him I was always curious about the building. According to the bum, the house had at one time been a residence for some form of horse-mounted law enforcement... I forget the exact term he used... still a mystery.
ReplyDeleteThe address is 100 summit crescent.
ReplyDeleteI read this article. I think You put a lot of effort to create this article. I appreciate your work.
ReplyDeletegolf equipment store online