Bouchette noted that the produce from these gardens in the summer months was "excellent in quality, affording a profuse supply... in as much, or even greater perfection than in many southern climes". In 1822, Sir Richard Phillips commented that, A number of handsome villas now make their appearance around the town, and there are numerous sites still unoccupied, which will probably be hereafter crowned with elegant seats. Few places in the world possess more capabilities of this kind than Quebec and Montreal; if the latter is less bold than the former in its scenery, it possesses much richness and delicate beauty, which need nothing but wealth and taste to display them to advantage; the former already exists in Montreal to a great extent, and there are also very respectable proofs of the existence and growth of the latter. List of principal structures built Beaver Hall. Built in 1792, for Joseph Frobisher, it stood between the McTavish and McGill properties on the site that is today commemorated as Beaver Square. It stood amidst 40 acres made up of forest and apple trees, roughly where the Sun Life Building is today. The house measured 80 feet across and his dining room comfortably sat forty guests. It burned down in a fire in 1847. Burnside Place. Built in 1797, for James McGill. Unlike the mansions built by McGill's contemporaries, Burnside was a comfortable farmhouse of two stories over a basement for the kitchen and servants, standing on 46 acres of land, and used by the McGills during the summer. In his will, McGill bequeathed the property and £10,000 to establish a university, which would become McGill University. Immediately after his death, the house was occupied by his stepson, François-Amable Trottier DesRivières, who fought to keep the house for himself rather than give it to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning as his stepfather had intended. The last person to occupy the house was John Bethune; it was replaced by the Arts Building in 1837. "Burnside Place" is visible in an early photograph by William Notman, a view from Mount Royal towards the harbour, taken in 1860. It was located roughly where McTavish and De Maisonneuve intersect. The Arts Building is located further up the hill. The engraving by John H. McNaughton, 1842, shows "Burnside" in relation to the McTavish House, which was located near the site of the new Arts Building.