

The Holy Cream
20 sept. 2024
The Saint-Crème is the winner of the “Reuse d’un bâtiment patrimoine 2024” award issued by the Conseil du Patrimoine Religieux du Québec. The award was presented to its young 25-year-old owner, Vincent Lavoie, on September 19 in Rivière-du-Loup, during the annual Forum on Religious Heritage.
This award recognizes the excellence of this achievement, which aimed to give a second life to a heritage building that was at risk of disappearing from the landscape. The Saint-Crème continues to garner honors, after barely a year of existence for its hotel service.
“I am really proud to win this award,” Vincent Lavoie told us, “ because we managed to do a very high-quality transformation with a limited budget, tight time and a very small team. I was able to respect the history of the place and that is reflected in my business.”
An architectural concept as unique as it is innovative
The Pôle architecture firm in Alma is responsible for this unique architectural concept. And the challenge was considerable: Integrating a hotel, a restaurant area and a place specifically designed for cyclists and snowmobilers with their equipment, into a nearly century-old church, and all this "without distorting the nature of the place," as Vincent Lavoie points out.
The good condition of the envelope allowed it to be preserved almost entirely to limit interventions inside the nave. Pôle Architecture's proposal was to integrate, in the upper part of the existing space, a cube that seems suspended. This made it possible to increase the interior surface area and respond to the new vocation of the building.
The installation of the new cubic space, completely independent of the existing structure, made it possible to limit the structural reinforcement interventions on the building. Like a box floating in a larger box, this volumetric addition magnifies the vault, the stained glass windows and the woodwork which remain clearly visible from the entrance.
The extra floor created by this cube has allowed for the creation of 10 rooms with windows overlooking the original stained glass windows. These windows offer Saint-Crème guests a window onto the building's finest artifacts and, even better, an insight into the perfect marriage of old and new. Ultimately, no matter where you are in Saint-Crème, you always feel like you're in a church.
Gabrielle Potvin, associate architect at Pôle, emphasizes that “ The success of such a project was possible thanks to the collaboration of Vincent, who has an elaborate vision, with a great open-mindedness in order to give free rein to the imagination of the architects of Pôle Architecture. The challenges were significant, the needs of the program were numerous and these were carried out in close collaboration, with the greatest respect for the heritage character of the places.”
Rapid growth
The project, now mature, was carried out step by step. Initially, in the summer of 2022, Saint-Crème opened only a dairy with barely 2 employees. Two years and 30 employees later, Saint-Crème is now a 10-room hotel, a snowmobiler relay, a sandwich shop, a bagel shop, a corporate lunch box service, an event space and more.
Today, we still go there for the ice cream, but also for the Friday night pizzas, for the "pure tradition" brioches, but we also go there, simply for the warmth of the place, to gather. It is not just a restored building, it is an old church that becomes a gathering place that benefits an entire community.
Vincent Lavoie is now fulfilled: “When I see all this, I am proud; the welcome from the population, the good business, I tell myself that I still have to guarantee the sustainability of this business so I want to surround myself with people who will be able to help me in the management and in the realization of great projects for the future! And we have several in mind.”
In the photo award ceremony (from left to right)
Caroline Tanguay, President of the CPRQ
Vincent Lavoie, Owner of Saint-Crème
Ariane Tremblay, Assistant Director of Saint-Crème