Ontario Abandoned Places will be rebranded as Ominous Abandoned Places

Forget family Workshop

Demolished Barn in Senneville, Quebec, Canada

Nov 05 2015

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Recent status Demolished
Location # 12904

This building was a turn of the century carpentry and paint shop located in Senneville Quebec.
The Workshop (along with a root cellar) was built in 1902 on the Estate of The Honourable Louis Joseph Forget, a wealthy financier and Conservative Senator.
In the late19th and early 20th century, a number of prominent Montreal Business and Government leaders acquired significant land holdings at the western tip of Montreal Island on which they constructed Country Estates. Some of these men, including Senator Forget, operated “hobby farms” on their property. Senator Forget’s holding, among the largest in the area, included the requisite mansion, two residences for the families of the farming staff (Gentleman farmers don’t get their hands dirty), a Stable complex for thoroughbred horses and dairy cattle, and this workshop (atelier).
On Mr Forget’s death in 1911, his family took over the estate and eventually abandoned the workshop. In 1991, the City of Montreal acquired the estate (minus the Mansion) from the Forget family with the intention of turning it into an ecological Agricultural Park (Parc Agricole Bois des Roches). The residences were leased out and the workshop was repurposed as a storage shed.
I have been driving by this site periodically over the years and first photographed the shed in 2004, intrigued by the derelict flatbed truck (a 1964 Fargo 100) in the front yard (gallery 1). Several years later, I was disappointed to see that the truck had been removed and this year I was even more disappointed and shocked to see the state of collapse of the roof. I believe this occurred (due to snow load?) over the winter 2014/15. I don’t know what the city now intends to do with the workshop but it is evident that it is in a dangerous condition and is currently surrounded with a high chain link fence (gallery 2).

Comments

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3 years ago

As of December 2020, the ruins of the workshop have been demolished.

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9 years ago

Nice. I like the before and after effect.