ManorPark Community

Cardinal Glen has a signature neighbourhood marker to greet its residents and passers-by. Perhaps you have noticed the welcoming entrance just off of St. Laurent Boulevard at Dunbarton Crescent. Tall, graceful ornamental grasses surround huge stone markers, augmented by flowers and a well-tended lawn in the warmer months.

Eleven years ago, this corner was an abandoned, untended patch of scruffy weeds. The Cardinal Glen community was being developed, but the strip at the entrance to Dunbarton Crescent badly needed attention. It was an eyesore that Marc Ouimet set out to change when he purchased his new house in Cardinal Glen.

Marc began some 10 years ago by cleaning up the weeds on the other side of his fence along Dunbarton Crescent, just behind the corner service station. A great gardener, he removed the towering weeds and took care of cutting the grass to make the entrance way more welcoming.

Community Partnership
Before long, the Cardinal Glen Community Association joined him in his endeavour, volunteers pitched in; fill and sod were purchased and installed with the Association's help. Grass grew, flowers bloomed, but the strip called for something more. Thanks to Marc's inspiration and leadership, the corner crossroad was about to be enhanced with signature stone markers.

Funding Drive
With financial support from a community drive launched in 2002, two large granite stones were obtained and transported from a quarry in Edelweiss, QC. A year later, crews from Beechwood Cemetery worked with their backhoe to help move the 5 ton and 2 ton stones into position and to make the site ready for the additional fill, sod and final landscaping touches.

Today, the larger stone, closest to St. Laurent Boulevard, proudly announces the Cardinal Glen community with its unique, custom-made, cast aluminium plague emblazoned with a beautiful Red Cardinal. Again hats off to Marc! He did the research, and spent over 20 hours chiselling and re-facing the rock surface to accommodate the plague with a diamond chip saw blade. Two years later, in 2004, the signature plague was finally in place; the entrance way was complete.

Et voila! Welcome to Cardinal Glen - with thanks to a dedicated neighbour who was an inspiration from beginning to end.