Homework has been given an entirely new meaning by the owners of this once-abandoned century-old schoolhouse. Instead of poring over books, Martin Gagnon and Jean-Luc Leblond have laboured lovingly to transform this derelict building by the sea into a charming country home.
“We never set foot in the place before we bought it,” Gagnon says of the structure, which sits on a low bluff overlooking the mighty St. Lawrence River by the small village of Métis-sur-Mer, Quebec. “We simply fell in love with it.”
Gagnon, who teaches hotel and restaurant management in nearby Rimouski, was in charge of the restaurants at the Reford Gardens (a splendid 19th-century fishing lodge-turned-public gardens on the shores of the St. Lawrence) when he and Leblond, an entrepreneur, purchased the property five years ago.
The couple were delighted to discover two large classrooms on the main floor with a third on the second floor, a teacher’s room, and all the original blackboards. The school, built in 1903, was used until the 1940s, and then abandoned. “It had no services — no electricity, no water,” Gagnon remembers. “Just a big fireplace in each classroom.”
The pair, who were already owners of a group of rental cottages in Parc au Bic, removed the main wall on the first floor to create a vast living and dining area, installed two full bathrooms upstairs for the five bedrooms and brought in more light by fitting doors along the side of the house facing the sea.
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