Saint-Nicolas Heritage Site
Encyclopedia
The Saint-Nicolas Heritage Site is a small municipal historic district located in the western part of Lévis, Quebec
. It encompasses a group of a half-dozen properties and their dependencies that developed around the estate of a major family. Most of the buildings date from the 19th century, with the oldest dating from the mid-18th century. Two of them were later separately designated historic monuments at the provincial level. The site was the second designated in the province.
), with one on the merging Pioneers Street , and is located just West of the original village core of Saint-Nicolas
(Saint-Nicolas was merged to Lévis in 2002
). Only the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Hermitage and Chapel are located on the southern side of the road. An eight building, a 1948 bungalow mimicking traditional architecture is located within the site but is of little historical or architectural significance.
s. This size is in part attributable to the various uses the house has had: at some point a general store
was located inside. The house is built using pièce-sur-pièce techniques where notched logs are piled horizontally, and covered with vertical wood siding
s, with low foundations (compared with buildings of the 19th century and later) and a very tall roof
. The ceiling lines are low, and a half-story is built under the roof, light by straight gable
-fronted dormer windows on two levels, with the higher dormers much smaller. Said roof is straight, with little to no overhang, and covered in cedar shingle
. All windows are divided in smaller square pane
s; those of the ground floor have external shutter
s. The original door was placed asymmetrically in regard to the building, and a carriage door is on the right side.
During the 19th century, the Pâquet House received many alterations to bring it more in line with the English-introduced styles that strongly influenced Quebec vernacular architecture
; almost all these modifications were reverted when the building was thoroughly renovated in late 80s. The second row of dormer was re-added, the roof was straightened back, the roof overhang and a porch over the main entrance were removed. The Pâquet house has several dependencies, the major ones being a 1825 shed and a late 20s barn.
Opposite the house across the road is Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Chapel and its accompanying Hermitage. The chapel, built in 1867–68, lacks a separate civic number
(it is part of the Pâquet House lot), whereas the adjoining Hermitage, now a private residence, is #1631. The chapel is a small Gothic revival building. Its structure is wooden and covered with bricks. The very steep roof is covered with shingles creating polychrome motives. All openings are ogive
-shaped, and most wooden surfaces, such as those of the large square front porch, are elaborately carved. All four angles are marked with buttresses topped with tall (taller than the roof, in fact) wooden pinnacle
s. A small sacristy
juts on the right side of the otherwise rectangular building. The inside decoration is just as elaborate, with fake wooden rib vault
, glass- and plasterwork
(the latter very frequent in Quebec 19th century religious architecture). Each corner has an alcove
with a statue of a different saint (Sts. Nicholas
, Joachim
, Anne
and Joseph
); these statues were imported from Germany in 1871. The Chapel and Hermitage are surrounded by a dense cover of trees.
, it is not the case in any of the site's buildings), a discreet summer kitchen placed perpendicular to the main building (whereas a parallel plan is more common in Saint-Nicolas), and two or four front windows, usually symmetrically placed on each side of the front door.
The Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Hermitage is a 1887 Second Empire house with a mansard roof, a verandah and a summer kitchen. The main building has three front dormers; the summer kitchen is a smaller-scale version of the corps de logis
. The Hermitage originally was surrounded by an elaborate garden
, little of which remains today. One of the dependencies, a small square building dubbed the "Noviciate" , was converted to a chalet
and moved to an adjacent plot.
The Bergeron House was built in 1788. It is a French-Canadian home with picturesque
influences reminding of carpenter gothic
style. A two floor buildings, its verandah runs on both the façade and the side, to the entrance of the summer kitchen. The overhang and angle brace are elaborately jig-sawn. It is a tall, imposing building with four façade windows and three dormers on a curved roof.
Although less imposing, the 1890 Éléonore Pâquet House , the easternmost building on the site, show similar decorative influence to those of the Bergeron House. Its front porch cover is also independent from the curved, sheet-metal roof, and has decorative angle braces (though they are less elaborate). A smaller porch links the master building to the summer kitchen. While the façade is brick-covered, the sidings is scale-mounted sheet metal. The window frames, unlike those of the Bergeroun house, are slightly curved, rather than gabled (this gabled decorative motif above openings is common in Saint-Nicolas). The door is surround by widows with round corners on all three sides, with the top corners taken by small round ones.
Built around 1870, the Ignace Pâquet House shares elements of both the Éléonore Pâquet and Bergeron houses, with peculiarities of its own that have led to its being qualified as "one of the most gracious houses" in the area. All three buildings share the same motif on their decorative braces. The Ignace Pâquet House borrows its general plan, with a verandah running on two sides, and its dormers' curved gable to the Bergeron house, but its brick façade, smaller proportions and roof covering are the same as the Éléonore Pâquet House, except that its doors and windows are surrounded with contrasting white brickwork. This feature, popular in Victorian architecture
, is uncommon in the Lévis area. The porch juts forward in front of the door with an additional pediment. The veranda is also the only one to have a balustrade.
The Bernier-Montminy House dates from the mid 1840s. It is the only pre-1900 house on the site besides the Pâquet House to lack a verandah, contending with a small, uncovered porch. Its main peculiarities are the slight asymmetry in the placement of the façade openings (the door is distinctly closer to the windows on the right side), and the decoration of their frames, which are painted the same dark green as the shutters of the Pâquet house.
. He left the island and came first to Saint-Sylvestre, Quebec
, though he married in Saint-Nicolas in 1762, before coming to the latter village. He originally bought a lot on the second concession of Saint-Nicolas, which he swapped with owners from the Bergeron family (connected to the Bergeron House), thus acquiring the original house. The Pâquet family grw to include several important personalities, from mayors of Saint-Nicolas and prominent local businessmen to churchmen (Benjamin Pâquet
, Louis-Honoré Pâquet
and Louis-Adolphe Paquet
), as well as provincial (Étienne-Théodore Pâquet
) and federal (Eugène Paquet
) politicians. The exact series of owner is not entirely clear, but by the late 19th century, it was the property of Étienne-Théodore Pâquet (father of the MLA
). Neither his son nor his grandson used it much, and in the 20s it was sold to the Hébert family.
With the exception of the Bergeron House, most other buildings were built by various family members (including the Bernier-Montminy House, originally built by Benjamin Pâquet Sr.). Although most where originally agricultural estates, they are now left as regular residences, with most dependencies having been torn down.
The site was first identified in 1984 by a review from the then Les Chutes-de-la-Chaudière Regional County Municipality
. The municipality designated the site in 1987, shortly after the Loi sur les biens culturel, which regulate historic preservation at the provincial level, was amended to provide specifically for municipal designation. The site was amongst the first to be designated by a municipality in the province, with only the North Hatley Heritage Site preceding it by a month. A few years later the Pâquet House and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Chapel were classified as historic monuments, and subsequently restored to their better times. Primarily this involved removing various Regency-inspired alterations to the Pâquet House as well as moving the chapel and rebuilding its elaborate porch, which had had to be dismantled in the 50s during widening work on Quebec Route 132
.
Lévis, Quebec
Lévis is a city in eastern Quebec, Canada. It is located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, opposite Quebec City. A ferry links Old Quebec with Old Lévis, and two bridges, the Quebec Bridge and the Pierre Laporte Bridge, connect western Lévis with Quebec City. The Société de transport de...
. It encompasses a group of a half-dozen properties and their dependencies that developed around the estate of a major family. Most of the buildings date from the 19th century, with the oldest dating from the mid-18th century. Two of them were later separately designated historic monuments at the provincial level. The site was the second designated in the province.
Buildings and characteristics
The site comprises some 7 properties, mostly on the northern side of Marie-Victorin Road ' onMouseout='HidePop("54763")' href="/topics/Quebec_route_132">Quebec Route 132Quebec route 132
Route 132 is the longest highway in Quebec. It follows the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River from the border with the state of New York in the hamlet of Dundee , west of Montreal to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and circles the Gaspé Peninsula...
), with one on the merging Pioneers Street , and is located just West of the original village core of Saint-Nicolas
Saint-Nicolas, Quebec
Saint-Nicolas is a district of the city of Lévis, Quebec, Canada on the St. Lawrence River.-History:The history of Saint-Nicolas goes back to 1694. It is one of the oldest parishes in Canada...
(Saint-Nicolas was merged to Lévis in 2002
Municipal reorganization in Quebec
The most recent episode of municipal reorganization in Quebec, Canada, was undertaken in 2002 by the Parti Québécois Government of Quebec, headed by Premier Lucien Bouchard and his successor Bernard Landry....
). Only the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Hermitage and Chapel are located on the southern side of the road. An eight building, a 1948 bungalow mimicking traditional architecture is located within the site but is of little historical or architectural significance.
Historic monuments
The Pâquet House is located at 1630, Marie-Victorin Road, and was built around 1760. It is a good example of French vernacular architecture. A long-façaded (over 90 ft) building, it was enlarged twice, once on each side of the original building, during its history (though the dates are not known precisely, the last addition was made before 1850). The dimensions of the original building are still very visible as they are markd by the position of the two chimneyChimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
s. This size is in part attributable to the various uses the house has had: at some point a general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
was located inside. The house is built using pièce-sur-pièce techniques where notched logs are piled horizontally, and covered with vertical wood siding
Siding
Siding is the outer covering or cladding of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather. On a building that uses siding, it may act as a key element in the aesthetic beauty of the structure and directly influence its property value....
s, with low foundations (compared with buildings of the 19th century and later) and a very tall roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
. The ceiling lines are low, and a half-story is built under the roof, light by straight gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
-fronted dormer windows on two levels, with the higher dormers much smaller. Said roof is straight, with little to no overhang, and covered in cedar shingle
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...
. All windows are divided in smaller square pane
Pane
Pane may refer to:* Paned window, a window that is divided into sections known as "panes"* Pane , a type of satyr-like creature from Greek mythology-See also:* Pain * Pan * Panel...
s; those of the ground floor have external shutter
Window shutter
A window shutter is a solid and stable window covering usually consisting of a frame of vertical stiles and horizontal rails...
s. The original door was placed asymmetrically in regard to the building, and a carriage door is on the right side.
During the 19th century, the Pâquet House received many alterations to bring it more in line with the English-introduced styles that strongly influenced Quebec vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...
; almost all these modifications were reverted when the building was thoroughly renovated in late 80s. The second row of dormer was re-added, the roof was straightened back, the roof overhang and a porch over the main entrance were removed. The Pâquet house has several dependencies, the major ones being a 1825 shed and a late 20s barn.
Opposite the house across the road is Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Our Lady of Graces
Our Lady of Graces or St Mary of Graces is a devotion to the Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church...
Chapel and its accompanying Hermitage. The chapel, built in 1867–68, lacks a separate civic number
House numbering
House numbering is the system of giving a unique number to each building in a street or area, with the intention of making it easier to locate a particular building. The house number is often part of a postal address....
(it is part of the Pâquet House lot), whereas the adjoining Hermitage, now a private residence, is #1631. The chapel is a small Gothic revival building. Its structure is wooden and covered with bricks. The very steep roof is covered with shingles creating polychrome motives. All openings are ogive
Ogive
An ogive is the roundly tapered end of a two-dimensional or three-dimensional object.-Applied physical science and engineering:In ballistics or aerodynamics, an ogive is a pointed, curved surface mainly used to form the approximately streamlined nose of a bullet or other projectile.The traditional...
-shaped, and most wooden surfaces, such as those of the large square front porch, are elaborately carved. All four angles are marked with buttresses topped with tall (taller than the roof, in fact) wooden pinnacle
Pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...
s. A small sacristy
Sacristy
A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.The sacristy is usually located inside the church, but in some cases it is an annex or separate building...
juts on the right side of the otherwise rectangular building. The inside decoration is just as elaborate, with fake wooden rib vault
Rib vault
The intersection of two or three barrel vaults produces a rib vault or ribbed vault when they are edged with an armature of piped masonry often carved in decorative patterns; compare groin vault, an older form of vault construction...
, glass- and plasterwork
Plasterwork
Plasterwork refers to construction or ornamentation done with plaster, such as a layer of plaster on an interior wall or plaster decorative moldings on ceilings or walls. This is also sometimes called pargeting...
(the latter very frequent in Quebec 19th century religious architecture). Each corner has an alcove
Alcove
Alcove , a vault) is an architectural term for a recess in a room, usually screened off by pillars, balustrades or drapery.In geography and geology, the term Alcove is used for a wind-eroded depression in the side of a cliff of a homogenous rock type, famous from sandstones of the Colorado Plateau...
with a statue of a different saint (Sts. Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
, Joachim
Joachim
Saint Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne appears first in the apocryphal Gospel of James...
, Anne
Saint Anne
Saint Hanna of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian and Islamic tradition. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah...
and Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
); these statues were imported from Germany in 1871. The Chapel and Hermitage are surrounded by a dense cover of trees.
Other buildings
The other buildings within the site, although typical examples of 18th- and 19th-century vernacular cottages in their own right, are of fairly limited historical interest beyond their overall link to the Pâquet estate. All of them except the Hermitage house share a common shape: a curved roof with three gable dormers and a short overhang that does not cover the porch (while it is common for the overhand to extend and cover a verandahVerandah
A veranda or verandah is a roofed opened gallery or porch. It is also described as an open pillared gallery, generally roofed, built around a central structure...
, it is not the case in any of the site's buildings), a discreet summer kitchen placed perpendicular to the main building (whereas a parallel plan is more common in Saint-Nicolas), and two or four front windows, usually symmetrically placed on each side of the front door.
The Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Hermitage is a 1887 Second Empire house with a mansard roof, a verandah and a summer kitchen. The main building has three front dormers; the summer kitchen is a smaller-scale version of the corps de logis
Corps de logis
Corps de logis is the architectural term which refers to the principal block of a large, usually classical, mansion or palace. It contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry. The grandest and finest rooms are often on the first floor above the ground level: this floor is the...
. The Hermitage originally was surrounded by an elaborate garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
, little of which remains today. One of the dependencies, a small square building dubbed the "Noviciate" , was converted to a chalet
Chalet
A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...
and moved to an adjacent plot.
The Bergeron House was built in 1788. It is a French-Canadian home with picturesque
Picturesque
Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
influences reminding of carpenter gothic
Carpenter Gothic
Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...
style. A two floor buildings, its verandah runs on both the façade and the side, to the entrance of the summer kitchen. The overhang and angle brace are elaborately jig-sawn. It is a tall, imposing building with four façade windows and three dormers on a curved roof.
Although less imposing, the 1890 Éléonore Pâquet House , the easternmost building on the site, show similar decorative influence to those of the Bergeron House. Its front porch cover is also independent from the curved, sheet-metal roof, and has decorative angle braces (though they are less elaborate). A smaller porch links the master building to the summer kitchen. While the façade is brick-covered, the sidings is scale-mounted sheet metal. The window frames, unlike those of the Bergeroun house, are slightly curved, rather than gabled (this gabled decorative motif above openings is common in Saint-Nicolas). The door is surround by widows with round corners on all three sides, with the top corners taken by small round ones.
Built around 1870, the Ignace Pâquet House shares elements of both the Éléonore Pâquet and Bergeron houses, with peculiarities of its own that have led to its being qualified as "one of the most gracious houses" in the area. All three buildings share the same motif on their decorative braces. The Ignace Pâquet House borrows its general plan, with a verandah running on two sides, and its dormers' curved gable to the Bergeron house, but its brick façade, smaller proportions and roof covering are the same as the Éléonore Pâquet House, except that its doors and windows are surrounded with contrasting white brickwork. This feature, popular in Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
, is uncommon in the Lévis area. The porch juts forward in front of the door with an additional pediment. The veranda is also the only one to have a balustrade.
The Bernier-Montminy House dates from the mid 1840s. It is the only pre-1900 house on the site besides the Pâquet House to lack a verandah, contending with a small, uncovered porch. Its main peculiarities are the slight asymmetry in the placement of the façade openings (the door is distinctly closer to the windows on the right side), and the decoration of their frames, which are painted the same dark green as the shutters of the Pâquet house.
History
Étienne Pâquet was a descendant from one Philippe Pasquier, who came from France to Île d'OrléansÎle d'Orléans
Île d'Orléans is located in the Saint Lawrence River about east of downtown Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The island was one of the first parts of the province to be colonized by the French, and a large percentage of French Canadians can trace ancestry to early residents of the island...
. He left the island and came first to Saint-Sylvestre, Quebec
Saint-Sylvestre, Quebec
Saint-Sylvestre is a municipality in the Municipalité régionale de comté de Lotbinière in Quebec, Canada. It is part of the Chaudière-Appalaches region and the population is 989 as of 2009...
, though he married in Saint-Nicolas in 1762, before coming to the latter village. He originally bought a lot on the second concession of Saint-Nicolas, which he swapped with owners from the Bergeron family (connected to the Bergeron House), thus acquiring the original house. The Pâquet family grw to include several important personalities, from mayors of Saint-Nicolas and prominent local businessmen to churchmen (Benjamin Pâquet
Benjamin Pâquet
Benjamin Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and educationist. He was an extremely influential and controversial figure in 19th century Quebec religious politics, making numerous enemies amongst the French-Canadian ultramontane elite of the period...
, Louis-Honoré Pâquet
Louis-Honoré Pâquet
Louis-Honoré Pâquet was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic priest and university teacher, as well as celebrated orator of his time.-Biography:...
and Louis-Adolphe Paquet
Louis-Adolphe Paquet
Louis-Adolphe Paquet was an influential French-Canadian theologian from the late 19th early 20th century, and a major North American proponent and actor in the rebirth of Neo-Scholasticism...
), as well as provincial (Étienne-Théodore Pâquet
Étienne-Théodore Pâquet
Étienne-Théodore Pâquet was a French-Canadian civil law notary, and provincial politician and civil servant. In 1879, he was one of four Liberal Members of the Legislative Assembly who crossed the floor in the middle of a parliamentary crisis, causing the Joly de Lotbinière government to...
) and federal (Eugène Paquet
Eugène Paquet
Eugène Paquet, PC was a Canadian parliamentarian.Paquet was born in St-Agapit, Quebec, and prior to entering politics studied medicine and practised as a physician...
) politicians. The exact series of owner is not entirely clear, but by the late 19th century, it was the property of Étienne-Théodore Pâquet (father of the MLA
Legislative Assembly of Quebec
The Legislative Assembly of Quebec was the name of the lower house of Quebec's legislature until 1968, when it was renamed the National Assembly of Quebec. At the same time, the upper house of the legislature, the Legislative Council, was abolished...
). Neither his son nor his grandson used it much, and in the 20s it was sold to the Hébert family.
With the exception of the Bergeron House, most other buildings were built by various family members (including the Bernier-Montminy House, originally built by Benjamin Pâquet Sr.). Although most where originally agricultural estates, they are now left as regular residences, with most dependencies having been torn down.
The site was first identified in 1984 by a review from the then Les Chutes-de-la-Chaudière Regional County Municipality
Les Chutes-de-la-Chaudière Regional County Municipality, Quebec
Les Chutes-de-la-Chaudière is a former regional county municipality of Quebec in Canada. It merged with Desjardins Regional County Municipality to become Lévis in 2002....
. The municipality designated the site in 1987, shortly after the Loi sur les biens culturel, which regulate historic preservation at the provincial level, was amended to provide specifically for municipal designation. The site was amongst the first to be designated by a municipality in the province, with only the North Hatley Heritage Site preceding it by a month. A few years later the Pâquet House and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Chapel were classified as historic monuments, and subsequently restored to their better times. Primarily this involved removing various Regency-inspired alterations to the Pâquet House as well as moving the chapel and rebuilding its elaborate porch, which had had to be dismantled in the 50s during widening work on Quebec Route 132
Quebec route 132
Route 132 is the longest highway in Quebec. It follows the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River from the border with the state of New York in the hamlet of Dundee , west of Montreal to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and circles the Gaspé Peninsula...
.
External links
- The Notre-Dame-de-Grâce chapelle website (in French)