The barn looking building known as “Le Portage” was the only building still remaining in 2013 that marked the location of the Drummond estate complex known as “Huntlywood” and with it the era of the massive wealth of the industrialists of the 1900’s from which Beaconsfield owes its prestigious standing amongst the boroughs of Montreal.
After the estate was sold to Sir Montagu Allan the name "Allancroft" is attributed to being his summer residence in Beaconsfield Quebec. The Allancroft Dairy & Stock Farm consisting of the barn building and several other buildings was held up as model for ordinary farmers. At this time, milk production and supply for the Montreal market was un-controlled and un-pasteurized. Sir Allan, as gentleman farmer, lobbied for more sanitary control and government inspection, which didn't come about until around 1926.
The dominant main mansion was destroyed by fire and is now disappeared as part of a development, its coach house was moved to St Charles Blvd to be used as a church and is now destroyed, one of the statues that stood at the entrance to the rose garden is now in the Library, the other one not surviving through time, and only the farm barn remains standing.
In 1953 the building was used as an orphanage and from 1962 to 2000 it offered foster care for children aged 6 to 12 as “Centre d’Accueil Horizons”. In 2001, “Le Portage” was established in Beaconsfield on the “Batshaw” property as a centre for English-speaking adolescents to support a drug rehabilitation program in the West Island of Montréal.
This key building is on one of the Beaurepaire-Beaconsfield Historical Society walking tours that also ties in the Beaconsfield CPR station and historic Westcroft Ave.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2013, the City of Beaconsfield granted a demolition permit for this building, suspended until December 2014.
The demolition was done at the end of January 2015.
