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Origin and history

The hotel of Limur, also known as the moat hotel, is a mansion built at the end of the seventeenth century for Raymond Le Doulx, canon of the Cathedral of Vannes. Located on Thiers Street, it is distinguished by its architecture between courtyard and garden, with a main house body, a back wing and a monumental staircase. Its façade is decorated with white stone bands, pediments and mascarons, reflecting the classical style of the era.

When Raymond Le Doulx died in 1693, the hotel passed to his nephew, Abbé Verdoyev, and then to M. Blévin de Penhoët in 1748. In 1780, Marie-Joseph-Armand de Gouvello, lord of Keriaval, bought and carried out work on them, such as the enlargement of the bays and the addition of balconies. The hotel, seized during the Revolution, became a place of judgment for the prisoners of Quiberon in 1795 before being acquired by the mayor François Mahé de Villeneuve in 1797.

In 1820, after the bankruptcy of Joseph-François Danet (owner since 1811), the hotel was bought by the family of Limur, who gave it its present name. The family retained it until 1947, when it was transferred to the municipality of Vannes. From 1955 to 1968, it houses the Museum of Fine Arts and, after changes of ownership between the city and the state, it was classified as a historical monument in 1993. Since 2022, it has hosted the Centre d'interprétation de l'architecture et du patrimoine (CIAP), offering a reading of the urban and architectural evolution of Vannes.

The hotel consists of a main stone house and bellows, a croup roof, and a horse-drawn iron staircase added in the 19th century, from the old Town Hall. Two interior rooms still retain their original décor, while the modifications of the 19th and 20th centuries (surmountation of the stables in 1912, garage in 1925) partially altered its original appearance. The building illustrates the adaptation of Breton private hotels to the successive needs of their owners, from clergy to noble families and then to public institutions.

The name "Limur" did not come from its original sponsor, but from Charles de Limur, owner in the 19th century. The archives mention Raymond Le Doulx as the initiator of the construction, completed around 1687, on land acquired from 1666. The architect remains unknown, but subsequent transformations, such as the Brunet-Debaines staircase, testify to the stylistic and functional evolution of the building over the centuries.

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