This is the story of Mr. Chaume and his house. A house that was sold in the 1970s to my stepfather but the notarial act stipulated that Mr. Chaume,the seller, could stay in the house for free until his death. In the meantime, the buyer would not...
The place is surprising. This old rooming house next to an old railway was, in another era, the nerve center of this small village in Eastern Townships. Abandoned for over fifty years according to some, it remained intact and time has slowly doing its work. While electricity is available on the first floor, none the modern conveniences (electricity, bathroom, etc) have been added to the two upper floors.
Many stories have been told about this house and its parties loaded of alcohols. It is even said that a woman would be dead, drowned in a heartache, left behind by a husband who has chosen a new wife.
With a forestry industry on the decline, the rooming house has become over the years the property of an old lady who filled his loneliness by accumulating all sorts of things: furniture, frames and a variety of items she bought in garage sales. Upon his death, the three-story house was crowded to the point of objects that it was impossible to move in it.
Just a few years the vast property was bought and an antique dealer has acquired its content. True goldmine of old Singer sewing machines, old tables, organ (non-functional) and other antiques sold at high prices in Montreal but affordable here, the place is now a boutique where the buyer can walks through antiques covered with dust. Personally, if I had some room at home, I would be left with some memories.
This is the story of Mr. Chaume and his house. A house that was sold in the 1970s to my stepfather but the notarial act stipulated that Mr. Chaume,the seller, could stay in the house for free until his death. In the meantime, the buyer would not...
Like all good stories, d'Alcantara's begins with «once upon a time»... A Belgian aristocrat of Spanish origin, Count Carlos d'Alcantara, is madly in love with a beautiful French ballerina. His parents view this idyll with a...
In 1918 the Erie Canal was re-routed to by-pass downtown Rochester, and in 1919 the abandoned canal was bought to serve as a grade-separated route for the heavy "inter-urban" streetcars that were seen as obstructing surface street traffic. Tracks...
Closed for twenty years, the old general store do not look like a ship adrift, ready to collapse under the weight of years. I mean, not that much for a wood structure.
Known as the Peanut, the history of the store goes back over a hundred...