St. Jacques Heritage House Museum

The Beaumont & District Heritage Society is currently working on a project to upgrade the St. Jacques family home in Beaumont – the oldest building still standing – and convert it into an interactive museum. The circa 1912 home sat on a 5.1-acre parcel of land just east of St. Vital Catholic Church. The developer, who owns the property that the home stood on for 107 years, recently donated the house to our Heritage Society.

This project has been several years in the making. In 2012 the City of Beaumont approved the relocation of the home to Parc Beacon Park, helping the Society to save the home as a heritage resource for the community. Fundraising took place, with the goal of raising $100,000 for the first phase of our project. We were successful in raising $130,000 which included private donations, pledges and a $58,715 CFEP matching grant from the province, allowing us to ensure that we could save the home from demolition.

The new owner/developer did not proceed with developing his own land as expected, so we had to wait for the home to become available to us. On August 1, 2018 we were delighted to finally take possession of the home and on September 7, 2018 we were successful in moving it to its new foundation. We had considerable TV media coverage of the exciting event. The money we raised has paid for the move, as well as the new basement.

Now that phase 1 is complete and phase 2 is almost there we looking for a minimum of $10,000 in sponsorship to help us complete the landscaping portion. This will help us to complete the 8-stall parking lot and heritage walkway.