Paul Desmarais, the richest man in Quebec, dies surrounded by family on his vast estate
Shaney Komulainen for Financial PostPaul Desmarais on Jan. 20, 1992.
It was in a dusty bus garage in the cold, nickel-mining centre of Sudbury, Ont., where a 24-year-old Paul Desmarais took his first step into the business world.
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“It often happened that I spent 24 hours a day in the bus garage,” the intensely private Mr. Desmarais said in a rare interview with Quebec’s L’actualitémagazine in 1974. “I got involved in everything: ticket sales, administration, vehicle repairs and so on.”
In 1950, Mr. Desmarais had dropped out of law school to be there. For the price of $1, he had taken on his family’s struggling Sudbury Bus Lines, inheriting 16 buses, and $384,000 in debt.
When Mr. Desmarais died six decades later, he was the richest man in Quebec, among the 10 richest in Canada, and patriarch of Le Domaine Laforest, a 77 square kilometre family estate at Sagard, an unincorporated village in Quebec’s pine-forested Charlevoix region.
Criss-crossed by a salmon stream, the property houses a mansion done in the style of a Palladian villa, a nine hole golf course said to be “one of Canada’s best” and, in the vast gardens, a bronze sculpture of Rodin’s The Thinker.
DAVE SIDAWAY / Postmedia News filePaul Desmarais' country estate near Sagard, Quebec.
“Domaine Laforest is a joy to play and admire for the fortunate few who play it,” boasts the course’s builder, Tom McBroom Golf Design, on its website.
In addition, the estate hosts horse stables, hunting-dog kennels and pheasant-raising facilities. On occasion, locals have been hired to help drive pheasants toward organized pheasant shoots.
The property has hosted French President Nicholas Sarkozy, U.S. President Bill Clinton, both Presidents Bush. Nevertheless, aside from a few aerial photographs, the interior remains a closely guarded secret.
Locals are said to be protective of their famous neighbour who, eight years ago, contributed $1-million for a local church.
“Some towns have factories. We’ve got [the Desmarais estate],” Jean-Philippe Simard, a life-long Sagard resident told Postmedia in 2005.
A rare peek inside life at the estate emerged last year in the form of a leaked video showing a lavish birthday party and gala Mr. Desmarais had held for his wife Jacqueline’s 80th birthday.
Inside an enormous temporary structure built on the estate’s grounds, guests including Jean Chrétien, George H.W. Bush, Brian Mulroney, Jean Charest and former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson took in a night of music and theatre including performances by Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain and the Quebec singers Marc Hervieux and Robert Charlebois.
On Wednesday, the Desmarais family confirmed the vast estate was where Mr. Desmarais, “surrounded by family,” breathed his last on Tuesday night.
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