Bank of Montreal, Peel Street Branch(11/1906-1/1912)
2005-2015 Peel Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard [Burnside Place], Montreal, QC, Canada
Commercial, Bank [basement, 4 floors, 38 bedrooms]; brick and stone; composite

Client: Bank of Montreal
Architect: E. & W.S. Maxwell

Description: The wealthy and powerful businessmen running the Bank of Montreal and the Canadian Pacific, among them Henry V. Meredith (165) and Edward Clouston (55) liked to turn to their favourite architects for the design of new branches. One in Westmount (287), built in 1904 was followed a few years later by another one built on Peel Street at Burnside Place, a strategic location near Bank of Montreal’s pioneer West branch at Mansfield Street and Sainte-Catherine Street (1889, Taylor & Gordon Architects). The new Peel Street branch showed none of the solid, Richardsonian style that Edward Maxwell favoured before 1900, notably for the Merchant’s Bank of Halifax on Notre-Dame Street. It was more in keeping with the architects’ Beaux-Arts work in Westmount for the Royal Bank (599). The Bank of Montreal, after all, had launched a classical renaissance in Montreal with their extension to the main branch on Saint-James Street, designed by the New York firm McKim, Mead and White in 1905. The secured site was a 56’ x 116’ rectangle on the east side of Peel Street just above Burnside Place, giving the buildings elevation on both streets. It abutted a stone-faced brick three-storey house to the north (property of Dr. McPhail) and faced the lane at the east (rear). An early scheme called for a taller, four-storey structure. Recreational and office amenities such as a meeting room, card room, billiard room, breakfast room, dining room and kitchen, were on the first floor. The second and third floors had 36 bedrooms, sitting rooms and bathrooms. The façades were classically composed with stone on the main floor, brick above, Palladian windows and pilasters. This scheme, and most of the living and recreational accommodations, was discarded. The final scheme retained only the public, double-height banking room above a basement (storage, coal, washrooms) with a small mezzanine at the rear. There, a two-bedroom apartment on the first floor overlooked the lane. The Bank of Montreal stated that this branch was ''designed particularly for the accommodation of lady customers.'' There was, upon entering the public hall, a ladies’ sitting room to the north (with washroom en suite), corresponding to the manager’s office suite to the south. These twin rooms framed the view towards the dramatic banking hall, adorned with six Tuscan columns the same height and bulk as the group framing the entrance. Smaller windows flanked three tall, semicircular French windows to Burnside Place. The one in the manager’s office responded to the other in the clerks’ cloakroom at the rear. Hence, the balance and symmetry achieved both in elevation and plan were carried out in the ornamental scheme of the ceiling panelling, the floor mosaics and the furnishings. The new branch was unequivocally a classical Beaux-Arts monument that signalled William Maxwell’s growing influence within the firm and the depth of his knowledge and training. The main façade followed a strict symmetry. Two pairs of Tuscan columns supported a semi-circular pediment, with the enormous Bank of Montreal coat of arms surrounded by aboriginal figures nestled within. On either side of the entrance, a single oversized window framed by corner pilasters and capped by medallions, reminded of the elevation of the Art Gallery for the Montreal Art Association (273). As a whole, the Peel Street frontage was in the same spirit as the J.K.L. Ross House (588), a few hundred feet north on the same side of the street; as well as the end pavilions of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building (568) of 1912. This branch was demolished to make way for a concrete twelve-storey office building. The Bank of Montreal still maintains a branch at 2005 Peel Street; 2015 Peel Street has rental office space managed by Yale Co. Dr. McPhail’s house still stands at number 2017; it houses the restaurant L’Orchidée de Chine.

Holdings: Bank (basement, 4 floors, 38 bedrooms); brick and stone; composite
72 Drawings: 59 ink on linen; 6 pencil on paper; 7 blueprints
1 Survey drawing: property plan
19 Working drawings: floor plans, roof plans, elevations, sections
47 Detail drawings: foundations, elevations, coupon department, banking room, vestibule, structure, drain plans, staircases, fireplace, chimney, mantelpiece, vaults, windows, doors, clock, fittings, masonry, terra cotta, mosaic floors, ironwork grilles, balcony
5 Consultant drawings: structure
Comment: 5 drawings by Structural Steel Company Ltd., dated 7/7/1908, are included.

Comments: 5 drawings by Structural Steel Company Ltd., dated 7/7/1908, are included.