Chez Doris acquires former Fulford Residence, preserving building's vocation of helping women

Montreal heritage advocates say they finally have something to celebrate after a number of blows to the city's old buildings.

The former Fulford Residence on Guy Street downtown has been purchased by Chez Doris, a non-profit organization that operates shelters and services for women experiencing homelessness.

"It's a collective win and it's also something to celebrate that it's a good story. We have so many sad stories with heritage and I think it's really brilliant that we can pull it off," said Taïka Baillargeon, assistant policy director at Heritage Montreal.

The building, also known as the James-Edward-Major Mansion, was built in 1854 by Major, an Irish immigrant who found success as a potash inspector for the government. The home was the family's country residence, at first named "Erin Cottage."

The small but dense neighbourhood in western downtown Montreal where the mansion sits, Shaughnessy Village, is packed with quaint row houses made of grey stone and colourfully painted brick with elaborate wood detailing. But in the 1800s, when the home was built, the area was still occupied by farmland and not the bustling cityscape that now surrounds it.

The mansion is one of the few remaining in the city to have witnessed such a transformation over the decades and it finally obtained heritage status from the Quebec government in 2022, after being requested by Phyllis Lambert, the founder of Heritage Montreal. The status protects the home from demolition and calls for the preservation of its character and features.

After the Major family moved out of the home, it soon became the Fulford Residence, an organization originally created by Mary Fulford, wife of Francis Fulford, Anglican bishop of the Montreal diocese from 1850 until his death in 1868. Mary Fulford founded Church Home, a residence for immigrant women who were alone, in the 1850s. When Fulford returned to England after her husband's death, Bishop Ashton Oxenden took over management and turned Church Home into "an institution for 'ladies in precarious circumstances,'" according to Heritage Montreal's website.

In 1890, when the home moved to the mansion on Guy Street, it became a residence for elderly women and would remain as such until June 2021, when the last Fulford resident moved out.

In recent years, the residence struggled to meet the mobility needs of an aging clientele in a building not well suited for wheelchairs. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, a third of its 30 or so residents died, leaving too few people to keep the place running financially. The board of directors made a difficult decision in the spring of 2021 to close the residence and sell the home. For years, the board debated how to at once preserve the building's heritage value and its vocation of helping women.

Up against developers

Chez Doris soon showed interest and was willing to pay the roughly $5-million market price. But the bureaucratic process took a while and so did parsing other offers as prices for that kind of real estate ballooned.

Concordia University already owns many of the properties on that block of Guy between Ste-Catherine Street West and René-Lévesque Boulevard and was seen by many as a possible buyer. Neighbouring buildings with heritage value that it owns include the old Bar B Barn and Chez la mère Michel, two once renown Montreal restaurants that are now closed. Those buildings have remained vacant and it's unclear what the university intends to do with them.

"We were up against some promoters to get this place and … we are very, very pleased to have won," said Carole Croteau, president of Chez Doris's board of directors.

The organization's plan for the Fulford Home is to create 20 transitional rooms for vulnerable women at risk of being unhoused, as well as expand the services it offers, such as showers, laundry and meals.

"I feel very proud and also I feel also the responsibility that we have to bring for this building to be operational for us," Croteau said. Chez Doris hopes to complete the work to refurbish the home by 2027, in time for its own 50th anniversary.

It will have the responsibility of restoring and preserving the home's original features, such as the wide veranda with its forest-green painted wood beams. In the years since the home was laid vacant, the paint on the veranda has chipped and peeled, exposing the wood to the elements and damaging it in many places.

Inside, vast common areas with marble fireplaces will have to be kept mostly intact.

But Croteau says the place, with its homey character, is just right for Chez Doris. "It's going to accommodate 100 women every day for each meal, for recreational activities," she said, noting many of the services will be among those the organization already offers.

"This place is going to be the anchor of [these activities]."

To Baillargeon of Heritage Montreal, the home is coming full circle to one of its original purposes. She said it was the children of some of the residents who reached out to Heritage Montreal after they found out Fulford would be closing, prompting the request for heritage status.

"Not only the house can be maintained, but also the function is maintained, and that's a great combination, you know," Baillargeon said. "Heritage is not only the story of the past, it's actually also the story of the future."