After the French stole this tract of land from indigenous people, the king granted it to Monseigneur François de Laval in 1674. In 1801, Joseph Papineau, a Lower Canadian legislator, bought the land and developed it. He sold it to his eldest son in 1817, who in 1855, named his home Monte-Bello, meaning beautiful mountain in Italian.
The little building off to the side was a family museum built in 1880 that used to house art and artifacts from Asia and Europe. Today, the site is a National Historic Site with hourly tours of the interior of the main house.
While waiting for the tour, the granary near the Montebello Fairmont resort documents the history of ownership and the construction of buildings on the land. An old oak tree stands in front of the house. It was already a century old when the Papineaus built Monte-Bello, and they loved it dearly. Down the road, the chapel was built as a family mausoleum for the Papineau and is owned by the National Trust of Canada.
