Description of Historic Place

Île Perrot Windmill and Miller's House National Historic Site of Canada, also known as Parc Historique de la Pointe-du-Moulin, is located next to St. Louis Lake, a flat open site on the eastern point of Notre-Dame-de-l’île-Perrot, Quebec. The site consists of an extremely rare, surviving stone windmill and its associated miller’s house dating from the 18th-century seigniorial regime. Both buildings are of rubblestone solid wall construction with small windows and low doors. Official recognition refers to the windmill, house and its immediate surrounding property.

Heritage Value

The Île Perrot Windmill and Miller's House was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1969 because:
- it constitutes a good surviving example of the type;
- the association of mill and miller's house is now extremely rare.

The Île Perrot Windmill and Miller's House has existed as an interdependent building complex since at least the end of the 18th century. The windmill was designed by the master mason Jean Mars and the master carpenter Léonard Paillé dit Paillard for Joseph Trottier Desruisseaux, who had the windmill constructed in 1707-1708 to enable local residents to grind wheat into flour. Construction of the miller's house began in 1786. Their heritage value resides in their in-situ survival as a building complex and in the individual structures as examples of an early type of construction.

Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, May 1969, October 1969.

Character-Defining Elements

Key features contributing to the heritage character of this site include:
- its location on the most eastern point of Notre-Dame-de-l’île-Perrot, Québec;
- its setting on a point of land overlooking St. Louis Lake;
- the integrity of the building complex in its setting;
- the tall cylindrical three-and-a-half storey massing of the mill under a high conical cap pierced by triangular dormers;
- the rectangular footprint of the house with its one-and-a-half storey massing under a hipped roof with slightly flared eaves over projecting single storey wings on three sides;
- the rubblestone solid wall construction materials of both the house and the mill;
- evidence of the early construction such as heavy returned eaves on the house, the small windows and low doors on both buildings;
- the presence of wood sheathing on the exterior of the house and the interior of the mill;
- the presence of a windmill and mill mechanisms on the tower,
- evidence of the long term use and evolving layouts of the mill and the house, interior and exterior;
- evidence of interior furnishings and fittings in either building, including panelled doors, louvered windows, early hardware, interior beams, shutters, flooring, wall and stair materials;
- evidence of long term patterns of circulation, access and egress within each building, and between the buildings;
- the relationship between the windmill and the house on the site;
- viewscapes from the site across St. Louis Lake to the St. Lawrence River.