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Origin and history

The Hotel de Nesmond is a Bordeaux mansion built in 1630 for Henri de Nesmond, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, on the remains of a Roman temple. Born into a family of Irish parliamentarians, Nesmond gave his name to this place, which became a symbol of the local judiciary. The residence then passed into the hands of the City in 1659 to house the mayor, replacing the former town hall of the rue des Ayres.

In 1691, the hotel was acquired by the governor of Guyenne and profoundly remodeled between 1757 and 1766 by the Duke of Richelieu, then governor. The latter makes it a palace of 100 rooms, one of the largest in Bordeaux, with an entrance rue de la Porte-Dijeaux. The French Revolution led to its sale as a national good, its partial destruction and the subdivision of its gardens.

In the 19th century, the hotel had several uses: boarding school for young girls in 1830, then archbishoped in 1862 after its takeover by the State for Cardinal Donnet. The drilling of Vital-Carles Street further reduces its grip. After the 1905 law on the separation of the Church and the State, it was transferred to the department of Gironde and in 1907 became the residence of the prefects. He even welcomed Presidents Poincaré and Lebrun during the government retreats of 1914 and 1939.

The architecture of the hotel bears the marks of the transformations of the eighteenth century, notably by Richelieu, and of the nineteenth century, as the monumental portal of 1865 on Vital-Carles Street. Partly listed in the Historic Monuments in July 2023, it retains interior decorations and two protected stairwells, as well as its courtyard and garden.

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