Description of Historic Place

The Saint-Jérôme Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Station is a grand Richardsonian one-storey station with a high-hipped roof. It is located in the downtown core of Saint-Jérôme.

Heritage Value

Saint-Jérôme’s CPR station was designated a heritage railway station for its historical importance, and architectural and environmental qualities.

The Saint-Jérôme CPR station was built in 1897 on the former Québec-Montréal-Ottawa and Occidental Railroad line which had become a CPR subsidiary. Directly associated with the work of the celebrated priest Antoine Labelle, this station commemorates the arrival of the "P'tit train du nord", joining Montréal to Mont Laurier, a project which began in 1869 and took forty years to complete. Its objective was to encourage French Canadians to colonize the “Pays-d’en-haut” in the interior of western Québec rather than emigrating to the United States. As a result of this railway activity, Saint-Jérôme prospered as a regional industrial, commercial and tourism centre at the turn of the 20th century.

Grand and elegant, the Saint-Jérôme station is among the oldest of the Laurentian stations, and the only one of masonry construction. With its compact volume and imposing roof, its style is a clear statement of the principles of American architect H.H. Richardson that so greatly influenced contemporary North American railway station design. The station’s beautiful woodwork and high quality finishing details remain intact despite subsequent alterations. The renovation of the railway station has been done in 1997.

Although the station was originally situated on the edge of town, subsequent urban sprawl now places it in the downtown core. There, it provides an element of stability and definition to an otherwise disparate neighbourhood.

The heritage value of the Saint-Jérôme station resides in its spacious, refined interior and in the adhesion to Richardson’s architectural principles evident in its solid, well anchored form; its exterior execution in limestone, and its imposing hipped roof.

Sources: Heritage Character Statement, Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Saint-Jérôme, Québec, March 1995; Heritage Assessment Report RSR-220, 1993.

Character-Defining Elements

Character-defining elements of the Saint-Jérôme Canadian Pacific Railway Station include:
- the regular rectangular footprint and squat one storey massing of the station under a high-hipped roof with bellcast edges,
- its well-grounded form and clean lines,
- its substantial proportions and grand scale,
- the balance inherent in its vertical definition,
- the rhythmic placement of its apertures,
- the simplicity and prominence of its roof definition,
- the smooth aesthetic integration of special railway features such as a projecting telegrapher’s bay and broad eaves to provide passenger shelter,
- its spare decoration and detail,
- its rich, well-crafted original materials: rough-faced limestone walls with stone details, multi-paned wood windows, panelled doors, wooden details and trim,
- all original fabric, furnishings and finishes inside the station, in particular the rich woodwork of aperture surrounds, window groupings, the three-part finish of walls in varying woods with a plate rail, and the terrazzo floor,
- legibility of the station’s original vast spatial volumes,
- legibility of its original functional layout, particularly the surviving stationmaster’s office acts as an anchors to its early configuration,
- continued use of longstanding access and circulation patterns,
- the overall integrity of the building’s form, plan, material, and detail.