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Origin and history

The Provost House, located at 21 Duc-de-Vitry Street in Châteauvillain (Haute-Marne), is a civilian building completed in 1645 according to sources. It is distinguished by its facade decorated with monumental gargoyles and a broken arched entrance door, characteristic of the Manerist style of the early seventeenth century. The original frame, cellars and pavement of the stable were preserved, offering a rare testimony of the domestic architecture of the time.

Inside, the main room on the ground floor houses a 17th century stone fireplace, while the floors were modified in the 18th century, including the replacement of chimneys. The communes, including a kitchen with its old fireplace, a cobbled stable and a winery transformed into a garage, illustrate the functional organization of the bourgeois houses of the Ancien Régime.

The complex, comprising the residential building, the facades of the communes, three cellars, the garden and its fence wall, was inscribed in the historic monuments by order of 5 November 2003. The house, located at the foot of the old destroyed castle, reflects the close link between noble habitat and economic structures in a small town of Champagne-Ardenne in the 17th century.

The Provost House is representative of the urban dwellings of the first half of the seventeenth century, a period marked by the transition between Renaissance and classicism. Its mannerist decor, its interior design and its agricultural outbuildings testify to the way of life of local elites, where domestic life and economic activities coexisted in the same space.

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