Van Horne Mansion

The Van Horne Mansion was a classic greystone house on Sherbrooke Street at the corner of Stanley Street in Montreal's Golden Square Mile. It was built in 1870 for The Hon. John Hamilton, President of the Merchant's Bank of Montreal. In 1889, Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, purchased the property and it remained in his family until the early 1970's.

Van Horne hired Bruce Price, architect to the Canadian Pacific Railway, to enlarge the old Hamilton house to fifty-two rooms, claiming he liked homes "big and bulky like myself". In fact, Van Horne had one of the best private art collections in North America and he wanted a house he could share with it. The building was damaged by a fire on Monday, April 3, 1933, which led to the loss of part of Van Horne's private art collection.

This architectural gem of Montreal was controversially torn down by developer David Azrieli in 1973 under the mayoralty of Jean Drapeau, who declared that it was impossible to preserve it for cultural reasons because it was not part of Quebec's culture - Hamilton and Van Horne being Anglophone Quebecers. It was replaced by a sixteen storey concrete tower.

The mansion's destruction sparked the creation of the heritage preservation group Save Montreal. Journalist, William Weintraub includes the house and its demolition in his 1993 documentary, The Rise and Fall of English Montreal, identifying the significance of the building to the local Anglo community's heritage. The Sofitel Hotel today stands at the spot once occupied by the Van Horne mansion.