The abandoned Château Richard can be found high on a hill in the countryside of Quebec, Saint Lawrence River in Canada.
Industrialist Louis Richard, a wealthy owner of a synthetic leather factory, built this Victorian mansion in 1907.
The Victorian castle has a turret, a two-story balcony, a stone facade, and a pavillion-style roof made of Canadian sheet metal. The house had several owners, and the current owner, a woman, intended to make improvements, but those plans appear to have stalled. Despite the beauty’s heritage significance, the Ministry of Culture does not provide any support for its preservation.
The Ministry of Culture is looking into a request for the building to be classified as a heritage building.
Château Richard, which has been seated on the Côte-de-Beaupré since 1907, has lost its letters of nobility. It has no inhabitants, and its structure twists and turns with the elements.
Château Richard
Thomas1313, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An urban planner who lives more than 500 kilometers from L’Ange-Gardien submitted a request for classification to the Ministry of Culture last month out of concern regarding this prolonged agony.
The Château Richard stands out among the seigniorial residences that dot the landscape of Côte-de-Beaupré, which is close to Quebec City. It is easy to miss as you drive along Avenue Royale. Some gossips even go as far as to say that it is haunted, making it seem even more menacing at night.
The opulent Victorian-style home, designed by Lévis architect Eugène-Michel Talbot, to which we owe the Saint-Roch church in Quebec, was built for industrialists Louis Richard and Zoé Turgeon, who had made their fortune manufacturing artificial leather.
Château Richard
Thomas1313, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The castle changed hands several times during the 20th century, including a merchant and an abbot. It was sold in the 1920s. Over the course of time, weddings and other public gatherings have taken place in its reception hall. From 1930 to 1960, Château Richard thus experienced a certain golden age.
Arsène Bureau, its last permanent resident, only used two rooms toward the end of his reign. He spent a lot of his time in the attic repairing televisions, leading an austere life in a castle that otherwise cried.
The castle’s exterior envelope was still in impeccable condition, according to an article in Le Soleil in October 1984, some time before Mr. Bureau sold the castle.
Château Richard
Thomas1313, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Aside from a couple of blurred floors and mortar to be revamped, the man in the unfilled palace assessed the work to be finished inside the property at $3,000.
It had been owned by Arsène Bureau since 1948. In the middle of the 1980s, the Mathieu family bought Château Richard. Micheline Mathieu-Letarte and her brother Jacques Mathieu exchanged official rights to the property, according to information from the land register. They never, however, resided there.
Now only Mrs. Mathieu owns the castle.
