8. Residential Buildings

Ernest Cormier House

Montreal boasts several notable Art Deco private homes and apartment houses. Among the former are the Ernest Cormier House (1931), designed by its namesake and later inhabited by past and current prime ministers Pierre and Justin Trudeau. It includes a relief of a woman holding a replica of Cormier’s Université de Montréal tower. Another attractive private home is the Simon Kirsh House (1934) by Shorey and Ritchie architects, a suave horizontal work.

Simon Kirsh House

Apartment houses include several on Willowdale Avenue, which form an Art Deco residential district reminiscent of larger ones found along the Bronx’s Grand Concourse and Mexico City’s Avenida Mexico. Buildings there include Modern Court (1938) by Maxwell M. Kalman and two by Brooklyn-born Patsy Colangelo, Anita Apartments (1937) and Canterbury Apartments (1938). Fun fact: Colangelo also had a daughter named Anita.

A not so fun fact: Colangelo was interned for about a month during World War II because one of his other Art Deco works, a cultural center funded by Italian government, Casa d’Italia (1936), included prominent Fascist symbols. After his release, he resumed his practice.