Ravenscrag, Montreal

Ravenscrag
Ravenscrag from Pine Avenue, 1901
General information
Type	Mansion
Architectural style	Italian Renaissance
Location	Golden Square Mile
Address	835-1025 Pine Avenue Montreal, Quebec
Coordinates	45°30′21″N 73°34′56″W / 45.5059°N 73.5821°W / 45.5059; -73.5821
Construction started	1860
Completed	1863
Destroyed	Interior, 1943
Client	Sir Hugh Allan
Height	Tower of 75 feet
Dimensions
Other dimensions	Frontage of 300 feet
Technical details
Floor count	5 floors, 72 rooms
Floor area	4,968 m2
Design and construction
Architect	John W. Hopkins & Victor Roy
Main contractor	William Speirs

Ravenscrag was a mansion built between 1860 and 1863 in the Golden Square Mile of Montreal, Quebec, for Sir Hugh Allan. In 1940, his son, Sir Montague Allan, donated the property to the Royal Victoria Hospital for use as a medical facility, when its famously sumptuous interior was completely stripped and gutted. Today the building is known as the Allan Memorial Institute and is part of the McGill University Faculty of Medicine. It stands on Pine Avenue at the top of McTavish Street on the slopes of Mount Royal.

On its completion, the mansion of 72 rooms excelled "in size and cost any dwelling-house in Canada," exceeding Dundurn Castle, built by Sir Allan Napier MacNab in 1835. Although reduced in size and lacking its former grandeur, Ravenscrag continues to dominate what remains of the Golden Square Mile today.

In 1860, Sir Hugh Allan purchased fourteen acres on the slopes of Mount Royal, for $10,000 from the estate of the late Simon McTavish. The property was then considered in the countryside and was outside the confines of Montreal. He commissioned the Liverpool-born architects, Victor Roy and John W. Hopkins of the firm William & Wily, to design and build a mansion on the land.