One of the oldest houses on Île d'Orléans, it has retained many of its original features over time, having undergone only minor changes since its extension.

The Drouin house is located at 2958 Chemin Royal in Sainte-Famille-de-l'Île-d'Orléans, in a rural area near the border with Saint-François-de-l'Île-d'Orléans.

[5] A month after his union, on February 10, 1666, René Baucher signed a deed with Marie-Barbe de Boullongne, widow of Louis d'Ailleboust, seigneur of Argentenay, granting him three arpents of land facing the St. Lawrence River and extending to the center of the island.

Madame de Boulongne's misunderstanding of the exact boundaries of her fief, which corresponds roughly to the northern part of today's municipality of Saint-François, led her to grant René Baucher land in Sainte-Famille.

On October 5, 1678, a contract was signed between Baucher and Nicolas Menanteau to clear and seed an acre of his land for the price of 30 livres.

As a merchant, he traveled the length and breadth of the region, eventually settling in Newfoundland, where his trail is lost.

He owned the land until July 31, 1727, when he sold it to Marc-Antoine Canac dit Marquis, a militia major based in Sainte-Famille.

[12] Following a lawsuit initiated by a niece and two nephews under his guardianship, Jean-Marie Canac dit Marquis was forced to leave the land and house.

[13] A year after the death of his previous wife, the sixty-year-old decided to start a new household: he married 33-year-old Marie-Luce Foucher.

The Drouins' future on the land is assured by Élie's son Cyrille, who buys his father's house to help him out of a financial predicament.

[14] On the death of Cyrille (father), the land was given to his son Élie who, the year of his marriage, decided to transfer it to his sister Maria and leave for Montreal with his wife Jeannine Létourneau.

Created in 1978 by Georges-Henri Blouin, Pascal Poulin and parish priest Bertrand Fournier, its mission is to preserve and promote the island's heritage.

[18] When several historians and heritage enthusiasts alerted the fact that the Maison Drouin was up for sale, the Foundation decided to apply to the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications for assistance in acquiring it.

Rather than favoring a stylistic approach that would have frozen the house in a specific era, those in charge decided to preserve various traces of the building's evolution.

[17] Maison Drouin, one of the oldest surviving buildings on Île d'Orléans, is a prime example of French Colonial Architecture.

[1] This architecture, often referred to as "French spirit", should, according to experts such as Gérard Morisset, rather be described as "northern European Romanesque".

The central placement of the chimney, common in the Quebec City region, indicates a longitudinal expansion of the house.

The rest of the rooms are separated either by wide, tongue-and-groove plank walls or by plastered lath partitions.

The oldest room features a fireplace and a bread oven, whose heat pipe communicates with the chimney.

The interior, which has undergone few modifications since the house was built and enlarged, has retained a high degree of integrity.