History
François de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec, purchased the property in 1674 from the French East India Company. The Quebec Seminary inherited it from Laval. In 1801, the land was sold to the family of Joseph Papineau. His son, Louis-Joseph Papineau, built a turreted stone mansion, the Manoir Papineau.[2][1]
In the late 1920s, Harold M. Saddlemire, a Swiss-American entrepreneur, acquired a site along the Ottawa River, on land that formerly formed part of the seigneurial system of New France. Saddlemire envisioned a private wilderness retreat for business and political leaders. He initially called this project "Lucerne-in-Quebec"; it subsequently came to be known as the Seigniory Club. Despite the Wall Street crash of 1929, work on the planned wilderness retreat began, as planned, in early 1930. The economic uncertainty did not delay the project, unlike many others, perhaps because the presidents of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), the National Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada respectively, not to mention the Premier of Quebec, were all club directors. A special spur from the nearby CPR line had to be built to allow for the transport of red cedar logs and other supplies to the site. The Scandinavian log construction project was supervised by Finnish master-builder, Victor Nymark and construction manager Harold Landry Furst. Construction and woodworking teams worked in overlapping shifts around the clock using electric lighting at night. The church did not approve of working on the Sabbath; but by coincidence, the local curé was dispatched on an all-expenses paid trip to Rome for two months while the work proceeded apace.[4] An army of 3500 laborers ensured that the project could reach completion in only four months. The club's grand opening was held on 1 July 1930. Three days after opening, a magnificent costume ball was held, attended by the Governor General of Canada.[4]
The exclusive private retreat of the Seigniory Club took its name from the French land grant system. "Seigniory" is the anglicized version of the French seigneurie.[1] The club was only open to an elite membership for its first 40 years of operation.
Prominent Canadian club members during this period included Lester B. Pearson, the Prime Minister of Canada. Other non-Canadian members included Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco.[5] Other prominent guests at resort include Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Harry S. Truman.[6] The President of the United States Harry Truman's visit to Canada in June 1947 included a trip to the Seigniory Club retreat.[7] Truman had "expressed the desire to fish for his first Canadian trout during his visit to the club."[8] Edward, Prince of Wales also visited the retreat, and later revisited when he was the Duke of Windsor. The resort remained a private retreat, owned by the CPR, and leased to the exclusive Seigniory Club until 1970, when it was converted into a public resort by
In 1981, the Château Montebello hosted the 7th G7 summit; and leaders such as Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and François Mitterrand were guests along with the aides and security staffs traveling with these national leaders.[9] In August 1983, the Bilderberg Group held its annual meeting at the resort. In October 1983, the resort hosted the ministerial meeting for NATO's Nuclear Planning Group.[10]
In 1995, the American National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded a special membership to the Château Montebello, one of only two Canadian hotels so honoured. The other Canadian member is the Empress Hotel of Victoria, British Columbia, which was also a Canadian Pacific property.[5]
In 2001, Canadian Pacific Hotels was reorganized as Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, adopting the name from an American company it had purchased in 1999. The resort's name was changed to the Fairmont Le Château Montebello as a part of this re-branding effort.[11] The company continued to own the resort until the property was purchased in 2006 by the OMERS.[12] However, Fairmont continues to manage the property. In 2007 the resort hosted the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America conference, a North American Leaders' Summit between the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper, the President of Mexico Felipe Calderón, and President of the United States George W. Bush.
The resort property was purchased again by the Evergrande Group, a major Chinese real estate group making its first investment in Canada in December 2014. In November 2025, the Quebec Superior Court approved a motion by the Caisse Desjardins de Brossard to place the resort into receivership under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. was appointed as the official receiver, which intends to sell the property to pay down debts. The resort remained open, continuing under the management of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.[13]
