The emblematic house of the St. Lawrence Valley, associated with the colony’s French origins, is the result of a slow and rich transformation that began in the 17th century and carried on until the 1800s. Through the silhouette of this house, one may come to understand not only the lifestyle of its residents, but also the history of the individuals and families who populated the land, a history that conditioned the evolution of houses in New France.

In the 17th century, houses built outside of cities were very modest; generally made of wood, they were no more than one habitable room. Then, in the 18th century, houses began to grow as additions, sometimes in stone, were built onto initial dwellings. With increased prosperity, initial one-room houses were also sometimes built of stone. Expanded dwellings featured a common room (“salle”) and another, non-specific room (“chambre”). The common room was used for daily life, the equivalent of today’s kitchen, the family room par excellence. As for the other room, although private, it was not strictly a bedroom; it could only be accessed through the common room.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, several generations of a same family lived under the same roof, and a sort of generalized promiscuity reigned. Small land concessions, which could not be endlessly subdivided, prevented the sons of colonists from building their own homes. It was therefore up to existing houses to expand as families grew. In the Montréal area, however, population growth postdated that of the St. Lawrence Valley. Children there could more easily acquire land, there being more of it, and multi-generational co-habitation was less widespread.

The 18th century introduced a new comfort: the corps de logis double—houses that were two rooms deep (one at the front of the building and one at the back). Until then, additions had only been built onto the sides of houses, stretching them along the axis of the roof ridge. These were corps de logis simple, single-depth houses. Now, the countryside began to feature squat houses, a shape that had previously been more frequently associated with cities, where they first appeared. Elongated, narrow houses (single-depth) and squat houses (double-depth) can still be seen today, memorials to the evolution of the rural habitat of New France.