Gazebo Screen & Clear Vinyl in L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève

Gazebos in L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève

L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève is the part of Montreal where a gazebo is least optional. Semi-rural, bordered by the river, cut into large lots along riverside roads, it produces summer evenings that mosquitoes make hard to enjoy without a screened room. The housing comes in three layers, and each has its gazebo. The old village and farmhouses along the riverside roads tend to carry shelters framed on site, where wooden battens hold the material and the openings follow the posts rather than any format. The 1970s and 1980s bungalows have the classic retail gazebo near the patio door. The recent developments on large lots get large-format gazebos, far from the house, in open wind.

On a large lot, the gazebo is sheltered by neither the house nor the neighbours: it takes the wind off the river, sun on three faces, and the insects of the whole property converging on the light at dusk. It is a gazebo that ages fast. The film goes first, the mesh next, and the structure — aluminum, steel or wood — stands there, perfectly reusable. On the verandas of the older houses, the logic is the same as for a permanent structure: one-of-a-kind openings, wooden battens, measurements taken on site. From one lot to the next, two gazebos are unlikely to be redone the same way.

Screens and vinyl: what gives out in L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève

On the permanent structures along the river, the screen is held by battens, and the mesh is the problem before the frame is: fine insects come straight through ordinary fibreglass, and the owner looks for a hole and finds none. The answer is a tighter weave, stretched in the same frame once the battens are off. On the retail gazebos of the bungalows and the newer developments, the aluminum spline takes over: yellowed or split clear vinyl (MICA film) comes out of its groove, the new film is cut to the exact pane, slack mesh is re-tensioned. Large panels facing the wind get aluminum mesh rather than fibreglass. Everything is done on site, panel by panel, without touching the structure.

Structure and access in L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève

The land sets the terms. Houses are far apart, driveways are long, and a gazebo by the water often sits at the bottom of a lot sloping to the shore. Panels from a wooden structure are taken down by two people and carried back up the lot to the mobile workshop, or are redone right in place when the framing allows. The large-format gazebos in the newer developments have long panels that travel flat. And on an old farmhouse, the structure has followed the building's movements: no opening is square, each is measured separately, and nothing is cut before everything is recorded.

Wind, sun, insects: choosing in L'Île-Bizard–Sainte-Geneviève

River wind and the unobstructed sun of large lots age film faster here than in an enclosed yard: it goes on early in the fall, very tight, on the faces exposed to the water, and comes off in spring, because a gazebo lived in all summer needs its screens, not a yellowing film. For the mesh, it is surface that decides here: a gazebo on a large lot has longer faces than one in a city yard, and the longer the face, the stiffer the mesh has to be to stay flat between its two posts. On a lot that slopes to the shore, the lower face of the gazebo takes the damp that settles at the bottom of the slope, and it is the one still marked once the rest has dried.