Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Vaurenard, located in Gleizé in the Rhône, finds its origins as a hunting event for the sires of Beaujeu. The first significant developments date back to the 17th century, with the creation of a piece of water and the reorientation of the house body. In the 18th century, the courtyard was embellished by an entrance gate and interior furnishings, while the neo-Gothic chapel was completed in 1848.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the castle underwent a major transformation under the impetus of Michel and Paul de Montclos (1903). The house body is enhanced, the ground floor rooms are redistributed, and a vestibule with stairway is added. In 1913, landscaper Joseph Linossier designed a French garden, integrating the existing park into a mixed, ornamental and agricultural structure. The interior decor is then redesigned in a Louis XVI style, with woodwork, painted canvases and tapestries.

The architecture of the castle adopts a U-shaped plan, with a facade on a garden flanked by pavilions in the south and north angles. The oldest southern pavilion preserves a vaulted passage from the original access. The communes, organized in two courses in the west, complete the whole, while the park combines vineyards, agricultural areas and decorative elements (vases, benches, busts). Ranked Historic Monument in 2007, the estate also includes the chapel, the gates, and the park's hydraulic network.

Architects Tony Desjardins and Joseph Linossier marked the evolution of the site, the first for built structures, the second for landscape developments. Today the private property, the castle illustrates the adaptation of a seigneurial residence to aesthetic and functional tastes of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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