Maison Thomas Brunet to get $1.35M facelift

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

The City of Montreal has hired an architectural-engineering firm to carry out major repairs on a nearly 200-year-old house in Cap St. Jacques Regional Park, a Montreal city official confirmed last week.

Montreal executive committee spokesman Darren Becker confirmed the city hired MLC Associates to take care of major repairs on the house, which serves as a meeting place for community groups such as heritage-agriculture and employment-integration group D-Trois Pierres, which uses the building’s ground floor as a home base and runs the Cap St. Jacques Farm.

The firm will be paid $85,380 to carry out about $1.35 million worth of heating, roofing, electrical, structural and plumbing work on the house, which was built in 1835.

“The old (Montreal Urban Community) acquired the building in 1982 and there was a need to upgrade the building, and it’s a major renovation with heating, plumbing and everything,” Becker said.

Pierrefonds/Roxboro communications co-ordinator Johanne Palladini said the house itself is beautiful.

“It’s a jewel. It really is a plus for everybody involved that the work is going to be done,” she said.

Fondation D-Trois Pierres offers individuals between 16 and 35 who are out of work or not in school and/or have had personal difficulties the opportunity to work on a farm for a period ranging from six to eighteen months. Nearly 50,000 people visit Cap St. Jacques Farm every year.

“It’s really a great program and we’re glad the house is going to be better for them,” Palladini said.