J.H. Menzies could be considered the first man to invest in a commercial venture. In 1877, he grew a vineyard and built cottages to create a summer resort. Then Frank Upton bought the Grove in 1891 to convert it into a hotel. Subsequently Camille Legault built the Reliance Hotel on Saint-Charles in 1905. Legault and Pilon families erected also a post office, a tavern and rental apartments around where the Beaconsfield Shopping Centre is today. A lumberyard is also nearby. In 1924, R. Gilbert was given a permit to open a gas station at 244 Beaconsfield Blvd.

The Beaconsfield Shopping Centre was official opened on May 11, 1961, almost two years after the building of its first store, the Steinberg food market.

Another shopping plaza was built on Saint-Charles in the 1970s on a lot sold by the Fabrique of the Parish of St. Edmond of Canterbury.

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Audrey and Claude Hoskin (     -1987)

In 1939, Claude Hoskin bought The Grove Point Inn that was in a deplorable state. After World War II, the hotel resumed operations. In 1966, rejecting offers from developers, he sold to the City for $175,000. Today, it is rented to the Beaconsfield yacht Club.

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In 1874, John Henry Menzies bought farm #31 from Paul Urgèle Gabriel Valois and renamed le Bocage “The Homestead”. He started a vineyard in 1877, but it was not successful. He also built six villa cottages (still standing today #33, 35, 37, 39, 41 and 43 Lakeshore Road; #35 was demolished in 2015). Menzies had called his property “Beaconsfield” in honour of his friend Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, politician and English novel writer, England Prime Minister in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880.

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Frank Upton (   -1923)

In 1891, Upton, a well-known Montreal restaurateur, bought the Grove and converted the area into an exclusive country resort and boating club, calling it “The Grove Point Inn”.

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