Description of Historic Place

The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station at Lacolle is a two-and-a-half-storey, Chateau-style, railway station, built in 1930. It is located at the eastern edge of the village of Lacolle, near the Canadian-American border. The formal recognition is confined to the railway station building itself.

Heritage Value

Situated close to the Canadian-American border, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station at Lacolle played an important and unusual role as both a railway station and a customs and immigration post for Canadian and American officers. Built by the Napierville Junction Railway, a subsidiary of the American-owned Delaware and Hudson Railway, the Lacolle station illustrates the effect of international investment on railway construction in Canada.

The Lacolle railway station is a late example of the Chateau style developed by railway companies during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Designed by Montreal architect Charles Reginald Tetley, its resemblance to a Normandy manor house reflects the romantic view of its American owners towards the architecture of Old Quebec, and their desire to signify to American travellers that they had arrived in a francophone province.

The station retains its relationship with a stone wall of similar masonry which defines the station property. The station serves as a landmark in the community.

Sources: Heritage Character Statement, Canadian Pacific Station, Lacolle, Quebec, February 1992; and Jacqueline Hallé, Railway Station Report 068, Ancienne gare du Napierville Junction (maintenant Canadien Pacifique), 21 Rue Sainte-Marie, Lacolle, Quebec.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Canadian Pacific Station at Lacolle include:
-its Chateau style, evident in the L-shaped plan, steeply pitched roofs pierced by small dormers, gable ends with parapets and kneelers, circular towers with conical roofs and rustic, stone cladding
-its form and massing, consisting of an L-shaped, two-and-a-half-storey volume, with a circular tower at the end of one wing and a corbelled tower at the corner of the end of the other wing
-its large size, to accommodate both railway station, and customs and immigration functions
-its roof line, comprised of two, steeply pitched, intersecting, gable roofs, pierced by small, hip-roofed dormers, and terminated by three gable ends with parapets and kneelers, and separate, steeply pitched conical roofs capping the two towers
-its masonry, consisting of rustic, stone cladding, rustic stone voussoirs and smooth stone trim used as sills, parapets, kneelers and corbels
-its use of beaded copper panels as a roofing material
-its use of local stone as a cladding material, quarried on site
-the regular arrangement of window and door openings along all elevations
-segmentally arched door and window openings on the ground floor, round-arched window openings in the towers and attic gable, and rectangular openings on the second storey
-surviving original window and door units, including wood, sash, multi-light windows and storm windows, wood doors with multi-light uppers, and boarded-up windows in the second storey of the tower which accommodate a signalling apparatus
-the interior plan of its ground floor, including a waiting room, a ticket office at the intersection of the two wings, the telegrapher’s office in the tower, and a freight room
-the interior plan of the second floor, consisting of offices
-surviving original interior finishes and fixtures in the telegrapher’s bay
-surviving original interior finishes and fixtures in the waiting room, including wood floors, oak panelling and trim, and a coffered ceiling composed of steel joists covered by oak planks.