Description of Historic Place

A modern residence designed by an architect to meet his own needs and those of his family could not be run-of-the-mill. The way the Conrad Blanchette house hugs the land, its great room that gives a family all the shared living space needed to blossom, and the ceramic mural by celebrated Quebec artist Jordi Bonet all confer upon this house a precious and unique cachet. Its construction was in itself an historic event.

Heritage Value

The Conrad Blanchette house was designated a Local Historic Place for its modern architecture and for its association with the architect who designed it. Located in Saint-Anselme in the centre of Dieppe, the house is eye-catching because an architect designed it for his own purposes. In 1961, the birth of a fourth child led Blanchette to realize that his home lacked space and to plan his own residence, which he designed with three needs in mind: adapting to the particularities of a slope wedged between the highway and the marsh, providing his family with all the shared living space it needed and exercising his personal sense of the useful and the beautiful. With his brother-in-law as foreman, Conrad hired carpenters, stonecutters, and masons who started construction in the fall of 1963 and completed the project the following summer. Conrad also called upon the talent of artist Jordi Bonet, whose ceramic mural, La Création du monde (The Creation of the world), hangs over the hearth. The architect and his family were able to live comfortably in this custom-made residence; two more children were born there. Conrad Blanchette was one of the architects who combined to form Architects Four Limited in 1976. He retired in 1992.

Source: City of Dieppe, Local Historic Places file (2), C1

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements that describe the Conrad Blanchette house include:
- the design by an architect for his own needs;
- the design closely following the slope of the land;
- two different levels: the first at the foot of the slope, the second built atop the first, but stretching over the hill to front onto the street;
- at the back of the second floor, a shared great room that combines the kitchen, dining room, and family room;
- the French doors of the great room with a magnificent view overlooking the marsh and river;
- over the fireplace and welded to the wall, a ceramic mural entitled La Création du monde (The Creation of the world), by celebrated Catalan-born Quebec artist Jordi Bonet.