The Beaurepaire commercial venture started in 1928 when Edouard Lamoureux asked for a permit to operate a service and gas station on Beaconsfield Boulevard at the corner of Lakeview Boulevard. East of Woodland Avenue, in 1929, Sidney Cunningham opened a general store. In 1934, Hazel Taylor started a grocery store and the following year, William Kenny took it over and called the store “Passchendale”, recalling a famous World War I battle.

Elzéar Godin opened his grocery and butcher store in 1948 on the northwest corner of Fieldfare Avenue and Beaconsfield Boulevard. In 1965, Godin dismayed when the Dominion Store came next door to him. The following year, he sold his store. A few restaurants followed in this building: Les Trois Soeurs from 1996 to 2009, then Le Bocage.
In 1948 Mel Carter and Bill Boxell built themselves the Hub, a hardware and paint store. Originally at 449 Beaconsfield Boulevard, it was later moved at the corner of Saint-Louis Avenue replacing the Perrette food store.

Starting in 1954, Roy Pelletier operated the Roy’s Rexall Drugs (today: Galerie d’art Chase). In 1961, Pelletier and business associates built the commercial building east of the drug store where the CIBC bank opened up its Beaconsfield Branch in July that same year. In 1982, developer Cliff Thacker extended the building into a mini-shopping centre.

At one time, there were three service stations in the Beaurepaire Village. Other businesses were added through the years.

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Mel Carter (   -2002) and W.H. Boxell – Photo: 1948

Mel was largely responsible for leading the post war development of Beaurepaire Village. In 1948, Mel Carter and W.H. Boxell worked for British Overseas Airways Corp. and they built by themselves a Hardware and paint store, called “The Hub”, then at 449 Beaconsfield Boulevard.

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Sydney Cunningham moved from Verdun in 1922. He was a charter member of the Beaconsfield Citizens’ Association, founded in 1925, and the same year, was the president of the Christ Church Tennis Club. He promoted the development of the commerce in Beaurepaire by opening a general store in 1929.

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Elzéar Godin is the son of Émilie Pilon ( -1886) and Thomas Godin, a blacksmith. Thomas had his boutique just west of St Charles Boulevard on the old Lakeshore Road. The house and the boutique of Godin, built in 1862, were demolished in 1981.

In 1948, James McIver’s general store, at the northwest corner of Fieldfare Avenue and Beaconsfield Boulevard, was converted into a grocery store, called Godin & Fils, run by Elzéar and his descendants. Godin was devastated when the Dominion Store opened up in 1965 next door to his store, and the following year, he sold his store (today a restaurant).

Elzéar Godin – Photo : 1950

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Miss Hazel Taylor opened a grocery store in 1934 at the north-west corner of Saint-Louis Avenue and Beaconsfield Boulevard. The following year, William Kenny took over and named his store “Passchendale”, recalling a famous WW1 battle site.

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Edouard Lamoureux (1906-1989)

In the middle of the 1920s, Edouard Lamoureux opened a food market at 550 Beaconsfield Boulevard, at the southwest corner of Lakeview Boulevard. In 1928, Edouard asked for a permit to operate a service and gas station adjacent to his food market and opened the first gas station in Beaurepaire. His business was destroyed by fire in 1942. The food market was rebuilt after the Second World War when his brother John came back from the war. The building was totally renovated in 1955 with rental offices upstairs and an apartment behind the store. In 1971, the store was rented to Yvon Trudel. In the mid 1970s, Trudel bought the entire property including the store known as Marché Yvon.

Edouard was a shareholder in Mansfield Realty Corp, company of his father David Lamoureux.

In 1929, Edouard became the third Secretary-Treasurer for the City of Beaconsfield. He was first operating from his mother's house, at 545 Beaconsfield Boulevard. Later on, the City rented a room in the Valois farm house until the opening of the first City Hall in 1931 at 450 Lakeshore Road. Living in the house next to the City Hall was the Poulson family; in 1941, Edouard married Arthur Poulson's daughter Amelie. 

Edouard was also Chief of Police and Fire Chief during the Great Depression years. In 1951, he also cumulated the position of City Public Works Superintendent. Starting on January 1^st, 1952, from Secretary-Treasurer, he became the first Town Manager of Beaconsfield.

Serving the municipality for almost thirty years, he occupied this last position until September 1955.

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Resident of Beaurepaire, Roy Pelletier opened in 1954 Roy’s Rexall Drugstore at 454 Beaconsfield Boulevard (now occupied by Galerie d’art Chase). In 1961, he was one of the businessmen to erect a Commercial Building at 438-448 Beaconsfield Boulevard.

Paul Pelletier, Roy’s father, formerly a welder, along with wife Mary Strathdee (died 1965) lived in the apartment above their son’s pharmacy at 450 Beaconsfield Blvd from 1953 to 1981. He was a fixture in Beaurepaire Village and would greet people as they entered the store. He would swap recipes with the ladies and swap fishing stories with the men shopping there and could often be heard playing his Hammond organ in the apartment upstairs.

In 1985, when the Dominion store closed at 485 Beaconsfield Boulevard across the street, Roy Pelletier moved his drugstore there under Pharmacie Jean Coutu banner.

His son David Pelletier is the Beaconsfield City Councillor for District 1 (2013-2017 ).

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