Half a million dollars is enough for a nice two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the Montreal neighbourhoods made famous by Mordecai Richler.

With a bit of negotiating skills, such as those demonstrated by Richler's famous character Duddy Kravitz, a person could even purchase a small house with a postage-stamp yard.

Half a million dollars is also what it will cost to refurbish a gazebo at the foot of Mount Royal in Mordecai Richler's honour.

And no, it doesn't have any heating or plumbing, or even walls; after all, it's a gazebo.

Even Richler’s wife Florence said she finds the price tag exorbitant.

“I think my wonderful handyman in Quebec would have done it for maybe $1000 or $1500,” she said.

This gazebo, originally built in the 1920s, had serious problems with its foundation and its roof.

But even though the upgrades were originally announced in 2011, apparently it was only discovered this summer that the structure was covered with lead paint and so is an environmental hazard.

Mayor Denis Coderre said the safe removal of the lead will cost an extra $156,000.

"We found out that there's some lead in the paint so we have to decontaminate and we have no choice. There's a process to environmentally do so and so it will take a little bit more time, we're talking about weeks," said Coderre.

The mayor anticipated the city's executive committee would approve the extra expenditures next week, and that the gazebo would be completed by the end of September.

Coderre said he’s told the executive committee the job must be completed soon.

“I’ll paint it myself if I have to do it! Jesus Murphy!” he said.

A man without land is nobody

Ten years after one of Canada's most famous authors died, the city of Montreal promised to refurbish the gazebo on the eastern side of the mountain as an homage to Mordecai Richler.

The gazebo as tribute came after residents and local politicians refused to name a street or anything of significance after the acerbic writer who was famous for satirizing he disagreed with, and did so quite publicly.

Much to the chagrin of Quebec's separatist and ethnic nationalist movement, he skewered their actions in the New Yorker magazine in 1991, and that led to a furious backlash against the federalist.