The Bottle Houses of Édouard Arsenault

This retirement project of the late Édouard Arsenault is a fine example of recycling at its best!

The Bottle Houses are a tourist attraction situated in Cap-Egmont, Prince Edward Island, Canada. They were built by the late Édouard T. Arsenault. He was inspired to create this project after having received a postcard of a glass castle from his daughter in 1979, an attraction she had visited on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

That same summer, he started collecting bottles from his community, mostly from a local restaurant, community dance halls, friends, relatives and neighbours.

He spent the winter in the basement of his home, cleaning bottles, removing labels and dreaming of his project. In the spring of 1980, at the age of 66, he began his construction, a mere hobby yet.

As his six-gabled structure was taking form, visitors started coming in. Impressed by his work, they encouraged him to continue and to advertise it as a tourist attraction. And so, in 1981, the Bottle Houses were opened to the public.

From 1980 to the spring of 1984, he cleverly cemented over 25,000 bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours, into three fantasy-like buildings.

Fisherman by trade, Édouard also worked as a carpenter. His creative energy and his sense of humour, very much Acadian, were channelled in his architectural project of transforming over 25,000 bottles into the colorful souvenirs he has left for all of us to admire. His strong Acadian roots also led him to contribute greatly to the development of the Evangeline area, his home community.

Maritime winters eroded the structures and they were rebuilt in the mid-1990's, using the same bottles and design.

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