Auteuil (Laval): A Local Broker's Top 10

01

The main road

Boulevard des Laurentides, the backbone

Everything in Auteuil is located relative to boulevard des Laurentides, one of Laval's major north-south routes. South of boulevard Sainte-Rose Est, it's mostly commercial: that's where you do your shopping and find the Laure-Conan library, at 4660. Heading up toward the river, it turns residential and much quieter. It also carries the bus service toward south Laval and the metro.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets get walkable shops without inheriting the boulevard's noise. The difference often comes down to two or three streets.

02

Red-roofed stone house along boulevard des Mille-Îles, in Auteuil

The waterfront

The rivière des Mille Îles at the end of the road

The neighbourhood is bordered to the northwest by the river, and boulevard des Mille-Îles runs alongside it for nearly its whole length: a two-lane road with woodlots, farmland, and old stone houses. Two green spaces along the water have kept their old names, Plage-Idéale and Plage-Jacques-Cartier. It's also in this area, near Descartes and Debien streets, that the parish's very first church stood in 1740.

Ask me about it: ask me what it changes at resale to be two streets from the river instead of ten. And what to check for flood zones before you fall in love.

03

The history

A former land of beaches and cottages

Before it was a suburb, Auteuil was a summer resort area. Cottages were being rented near Parc-des-Érables as early as the 1920s, electricity arrived in 1933, and the river beaches drew crowds from Montreal: Domaine Idéal with its restaurant and dance hall, Plage Venise, Plage Jacques-Cartier. The Provincial Transport company even bused bathers in from the Jean-Talon terminus. By 1964, there were still around 2,000 summer residents in some 450 cottages.

Ask me about it: ask me how to spot an old cottage converted into a year-round home. Foundation, insulation, crawl space height: that's exactly what I look at during a showing.

04

Pasture and farm building along boulevard des Mille-Îles, in Auteuil's agricultural zone

The country in the city

Avenue des Perron and its farmland

Auteuil is still made up in good part of farmland and woodlots. Avenue des Perron extends boulevard Sainte-Rose eastward, crosses a short residential stretch, then runs between fields where several farmers are established. That's where you'll find the Sainte-Béatrice church, whose parish was founded in 1961, the same year the town took the name Auteuil. You're right in the middle of the city of Laval and you can still run into tractors.

Ask me about it: ask me what the permanent agricultural zone means when you're dreaming of a big lot around here. There are rules, and you'd better know them before you sign.

05

Residential boulevard lined with row houses in south Auteuil, Laval

The sub-neighbourhoods

Streets sorted by letter

In 1961, the young town of Auteuil adopted a naming plan where streets in the same area all started with the same letter. That's why you'll find a cluster of Debien, Descartes, and Duval on one side, and Bellehumeur and Bienville on the other. It's not something that comes up during a showing, but when you open a map of the area, the logic jumps out and you find your way around a lot faster.

Ask me about it: ask me which letters match up with which waves of construction. The age of the houses changes a lot from one cluster of streets to the next.

06

Terry-Fox elementary school, on avenue des Lacasse, in Auteuil

Family life

Schools around almost every corner

On the elementary side, the neighbourhood has Alfred-Pellan, du Boisé, Sainte-Béatrice, and Charles-Bruneau schools, plus the English elementary school Terry-Fox, which opened on avenue des Lacasse in September 1993. High school runs in two stages: Odyssée-des-Jeunes takes grades one and two of secondary, and Horizon Jeunesse takes over for the last three years. On boulevard Sainte-Rose Est, you'll also find the Mike-Bossy arena and the Centre de formation en métallurgie de Laval.

Ask me about it: ask me to check which school an address is zoned for before we make an offer. That gets confirmed ahead of time, not after you sign.

07

Platform at the Sainte-Rose station, on the exo Saint-Jérôme line, at the edge of Auteuil

Transit

The Saint-Jérôme line train

The Canadian Pacific rail line marks the boundary between Auteuil and Sainte-Rose, and the Sainte-Rose station sits right on that line, at 99 boulevard Sainte-Rose Est, in service since August 1997. It's the exo Saint-Jérôme line, zone B. Several Société de transport de Laval routes have their terminus in the neighbourhood and connect the station and boulevard des Laurentides to the Cartier and Montmorency metro stations. There's even a shared taxi service to cover the agricultural zone on avenue des Perron.

Ask me about it: ask me how many minutes on foot separate an address from the station. For a buyer who works downtown, that's often the deciding factor.

08

Access

The Athanase-David Bridge, the gateway north

At the end of boulevard des Laurentides, route 335 crosses the rivière des Mille Îles toward Bois-des-Filion via the Athanase-David bridge. The current bridge was built in the late 1970s to replace an earlier structure erected in 1910. Four lanes, a sidewalk on the east side, and about 35,000 vehicles a day: it's the neighbourhood's front door for everything coming from the north shore and Highway 640. The name honours Athanase David, a politician who also served as president of the Montreal Canadiens from 1921 to 1935.

Ask me about it: ask me how the commute to Highway 640 and into Montreal plays out at rush hour depending on where you settle in the neighbourhood.

09

Recent residential buildings at the corner of boulevard René-Laennec and avenue des Lacasse, Laval

Development

Highway 19 and a neighbourhood filling in

Avenue Papineau, designated route 335, is actually an unfinished stretch of highway: Highway 19 still stops at boulevard Dagenais. The completion project calls for widening and elevating the road over about eight kilometres up to Highway 640, with four new interchanges and lanes reserved for public transit. Quebec broke ground in March 2021, with the first work targeting the Saint-Saëns interchange in Laval. Meanwhile, in the south end of the neighbourhood, around boulevard René-Laennec and avenue des Lacasse, four-storey buildings have gone up.

Ask me about it: ask me what a highway construction site changes for a property depending on whether it's two hundred metres or two kilometres from the route. It's a completely different story.

10

The Joseph-Labelle house, a stone house on boulevard des Mille-Îles, in Auteuil

Heritage

Alfred Pellan and the old stone houses

The painter Alfred Pellan moved in 1950 into a Canadienne-style house along the rivière des Mille Îles, where he set up his studio and lived for about forty years, until his death in 1988. He's buried in the cemetery on avenue des Perron, and a neighbourhood elementary school bears his name. Along boulevard des Mille-Îles, a few old houses tell the same story, including the Joseph-Labelle house, at 570, with its stone facade and gallery.

Ask me about it: ask me what buying a heritage home here involves: upkeep, insurance, rarity value. I love these properties, but they sell differently.

Auteuil

What makes Auteuil's heart beat.