The house was built for William Collis Meredith, the future Chief Justice of the Superior Court for the Province of Quebec. In 1843, Meredith, then a 31-year-old bachelor, commissioned John Wells to build him a new home beyond the confines of Old Montreal. Wells was then one of the best-known English architects in Montreal, whose work included the Head Office of the Bank of Montreal, Prince of Wales Terrace, and the Sainte Anne Market that housed the Canadian Parliament at Montreal until it was burnt down in the riots of 1849.