Pitfield House, aka Saraguay House (Greater Montreal Area)

 place with historical importance, edifice, interesting place

Saraguay House was built in 1952 by my Grandmother, Grace Pitfield, widow of Canadian Financier Ward C Pitfield. Parts of the foundation were originally an old barn with an elevator to store farm equipment on various levels. The property was all part of the original Saraguay Farms, and included several smaller cottages for staff, and a larger house where the family had lived during the Second World War. There was also a dog kennel and a large and active stable where Mrs. Pitfield kept her horses and a number of boarders animls.

Throughout it life with Grace Pitfield, the house was commonly referred to in the community as "Saraguay House", and her farming interests as "Saraguay Farms". Across Highway 13 and facing Gouin Boulevard was a huge stable that burnt in a spectacular fire in the late 1960's. As children, we thought it fun to put our hands on the walls of the barn, long past its life, and feel the electricity flow through the wood. Standards not quite acceptable today.

In its original form, the house had a huge formal living room, drawing room, large dining room, kitchen, flower room and numerous other utility rooms and guest rooms. Each room was uniquely furnished and decorated and the house was surrounded by acres of country fields, bush and few neighbors. The basement is huge and has numerous rooms, all occupied by huge and never seen monsters.

The entrance to the house was a drive down a narrow road that is, albeit widened, the one you use today. At the end of the drive, one would stay to the right and turn under a huge Oak tree, now the base for the lamp in the center of the drive. The tree died in the late 60's and was removed.

The area was abundant with wild life, including red foxes and as family folklore has it, a large silver fox, only rarely seen.

The pond behind the house was actually built and utilized as a swimming pool and was heated by way of polyethelene pipes buried under the lawn by the house, perhaps an early form of solar heating, although with questionable success. The smaller rocked in area of the pool was for the smaller children, and known as the Babies Pool.

For those interested in sanitary and hygenic swimming fascilities, this was not it. There was a great deal of moss, algae, frogs, bugs and numerous other unknown animals that the cool refreshing waters harboured. There was little or no chlorine and you could not see the bottom. It was the closest thing to a mountain pond that many people had seen and it was site of numerous hours of fun.

The grounds had lush flower gardens, as well as a goldfish pond in the woods in front of the house, closed after I, one of numerous grandson's fell into it as a child.

Behind the smaller cottages off the driveway to the right was an immense vegtable garden. Fresh vegtables were always on the dining table during the summer months.

Highway 13 as we know it today was originally, back in the 1920's and 1930's a horse path that led to the Polo Fields and eventually became a gravel road and was named by the City of St. Laurent "Pitfield Boulevard". Saraguay Farms was contracted to clear Pitfield Boulevard of snow during the winter months of the 1960's. Today for the most part we know this stretch of road as Autoroute or Highway 13.

The land was expropriated by the City of Montreal in 1977. During the highway construction and dynamite blasting incurred, a number of marble fireplace mantles and plaster moldings in the house were destroyed.

In it's life, the house was the a center for wonderful and lavish parties of an era gone by.

It is difficult to visit the house and see so many of the rooms that I grew up in cannibalized.

What is now the kitchen for the day visitors at the north end of the house was my grandmothers dressing room, and the eating area was her bedroom and a guest room.

The library, to the far right as you enter the front door has a hidden wet bar behind the book case, if you can find it.

If the Green fridge is still in the kitchen, it is circa 1976 and its predecessor is buried in the woods.

I can only hope that the house that was a center part of my family for so many years continues on and allows many people to enjoy what was once a serene and wonderful place in the woods.

Tex Pitfield
Atlanta, GA