This is Belmere, a 300 acre estate near Georgeville on Lake Memphremagog which straddles both Quebec and Vermont.  Belmere has been under construction for the last few years as a private Xanadu by the secretive former CEO of the Montreal-based Power Corporation of Canada, Robert Gratton.  

If you’re a Quebecois who has either made it big in business or otherwise stumbled into a pile of money then you’ll likely want to build a home on Lake Memphremagog where the elite of Montreal spends their weekends and holidays. Belmere is the most spectacular property on the lake (or any lake) with its own private peninsula and acres of formal gardens. In fact, the formal gardens at Belmere may be the most extensive in North America.

Belmere was originally the 19th century summer home of Sir Hugh Allan, a successful Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate. In the early 1990s it was sold by Sir Allan’s heirs and came under the control of Mr. Gratton. Mr. Gratton has been building his palatial estate for the past 15 years and is still not completed. The maintenance areas of the estate are so extensive in their own right that a traffic light is needed to control the traffic. Belmere is private property and not open to the public.

Another country house associated with the Power Corporation of Canada is Domaine Sagard, the remote, palladian palace built by Mr. Gratton’s former boss, Paul Desmarais. Domaine Sagard is covered in this blog here.