VIE EN MONTAGNE PAR/BY MOUNTAIN LIFE - Hiver | Winter 2020

81 words :: Peter Oliver If you happen to have more than $20 million in spare change clogging up your bank account, you too can afford to live the dream of Mountain Home ownership, Mario Lemieux style. In July 2018, Lemieux put his grand manor in Mont-Tremblant on the market for $21,999,066, certainly the most expensively priced private home in the Tremblant area and possibly in all of Canada, according to real estate broker Michel Naud. There were a couple of early offers but no takers, so the home remains available for qualified buyers. For you stats lovers, did you know the last two digits of the price tag are a clever nod to the number Lemieux wore for 17 Hall of Fame seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins. And if you are looking for other numerical connections with the hockey great’s career, the home’s 4.5 kitchens (or 4.5 garages) are almost equal to the number of Stanley Cups, five, that Lemieux can claim, first as a player and then as an owner for the Penguins. The home’s total of 1,579 square metres, however, falls a bit short of Super Mario’s NHL-career total of 1,723 points. The official name of the property is Château Fleur de Lys , but Château Lemieux would be more appropriate. After all, says Naud, Mario and his wife, Nathalie, were intimately involved in every aspect of the design and construction of the home after the Lemieuxes bought the 5.25-acre property in 2007. They worked closely with architect Remi Fortier in the choice of everything from basic building materials to ornamental trimmings. Exterior stone came from nearby Lake Champlain, oak floors came from Europe, pine beams were locally harvested. In a personal touch, the Lemieuxes imported and refurbished columns they had seen in an ancient castle in India to provide a decorative flourish to the interior living space. The basic idea was to emulate the look and aura of great European castles. They also chose all of the home’s furnishings, a daunting job when filling a house with 50 rooms. And although they planned to use the home primarily as a summer getaway (as they have after construction was completed in 2012), they wanted to be sure no one would ever feel the chill of the Tremblant mountain air. There are 17 fireplaces incorporated in the design. LIVING LIKE LEMIEUX NATALIE LAPOINTE