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Origin and history

Hotel de Latasta is a private hotel built in 1780 in Orthez, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, on the initiative of Bertrand de Latasta, a rich merchant who made a fortune in the sugar cane trade in Santo Domingo. This building, completed in 1785, initially consisted of a body of "L"-shaped houses and commons separated by a courtyard, closed by a monumental gate. The property, transmitted by inheritances and alliances, passed to the Dubroca family around 1850, and in 1854 welcomed Captain Alfred de Vigny, who wrote his poem Le Cor.

In 1896, the hotel was acquired by the Nairac family, Bordeaux traders, before being sold in 1916 to the Sisters of the Visitation. They transformed him into a convent in 1920, adding a wing connecting the two existing buildings and building a cloister masking the original facades. The communes are converted into chapel, refectory and oratory, while the main wing, stripped of its eighteenth century decorations (lambria, marble chimneys), houses the nuns' cells. The site, registered as a historic monument in 2002, became a private condominium after its resale by the city of Orthez in 1986.

The original architecture reflected a clear separation between noble spaces (three-level logis opening onto a park) and commons (kitchens, stables). The 1920 transformations profoundly altered the structure, with the creation of an arcade cloister and the integration of a chapel into the northeast wing. Today, part of the old park houses a retirement home, while the rest of the estate remains accessible via Saint-Gilles Street. The protected elements include the entire convent and the remains of its park, witness to its evolution between aristocratic residence and religious place.

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