THE LIGHTHOUSE: The Port to our Peak

A salvaged English pedestal plate (c. 1897) and a 16-year-old Nora Walsh: The beauty Pete Lavallée pulled from the salt to build a future for their eighteen children

Flowers Island, NL | 1905 – 1969

For twenty years, I watched this executive ranch. Long before it was ours, I saw the "quiet potential" in the bones of this unique house. But as I peel back the layers of this home—restoring 1904 masonry and rescuing salvaged mahogany— I note that my obsession with "heavy" history didn't actually start here in the mountains.
It started 4,000 kilometers away, on a one-mile-long island in the salt air of the North Atlantic.

The Keepers of the Gate
Before there was our Lodge, there was the Light. From 1905 to 1969, my family—the Lavallées—were the keepers of the Flowers Island Lighthouse.
My Great-Grandfather Joseph took the post in an era where living on the Atlantic was a survival — It took more than it gave. It was a life of rigid discipline, much like the classical ballet barre I would eventually call home. But as I’ve uncovered the artifacts of their lives, I've realized it was also a life of profound, hidden artistry.

The Drive-In Discovery
In the summer of 1977, I sat in the back of a car at a drive-in theater, my eyes fixed on a glowing screen as a story called Pete’s Dragon flickered against the night sky. To the rest of the world, it was a Disney movie. To a five-year-old girl, it was a documentary about her grandfather.
My grandfather’s name was Emile Joseph Marie Lavallée but the locals called him Pete. He was a keeper of the watch at Flowers Island for sixty years ( if you count the time he spent helping his dad. In my childhood logic, the math was absolute: a man named Pete, a lighthouse, and a story larger than life. It didn't matter that the dragon on the screen was animated; I knew the "Dragon" my grandfather carried was real.
As I grew, I realized that "Dragon" wasn't a myth—it was the quiet, steadfast resilience of a man who had survived the unthinkable. In 1914, the sinking of the CGS Montmagny claimed his mother and siblings, leaving a void of survivor's guilt that became the "Dragon" he carried for the rest of his life.

Bringing the Light Home
I’ve realized that my obsession with "heavy" history—the 1882 mahogany tables, the 10-lb pewter basins, the 1904 stone—didn't start at the Outlook. It started at that drive-in. It started with a man who sat by a lighthouse window and hand-sewed a wedding dress from strips of silk for my grandmother, Nora, because perhaps beauty was his way of taming the storm.
I have decided to bring that story home to Lodge & Legacy.
I’ve curated a private wing of this site—a condensed archive of the shipwrecks, the silk, and the eighteen children who turned a one-mile island into a sanctuary. It is the "Port" to our "Peak."
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If you are interested in maritime history, I invite you to step inside.

The Lighthouse

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