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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Segrez estate, located at Saint-Sulpice-de-Favières in Essonne, was built in 1733 by André Haudry, an anobli farmer general. Originally designed as a country house with French-style gardens, the estate was rented for life in 1746 to the Marquis d'Argenson, who invited figures of the Enlightenment like Voltaire. The property then passed to the daughter of Haudry, Elizabeth, who inherited it in 1770 before renting it to the Countess of Blot.

The Countess of Blot radically transformed the French gardens into a picturesque "Anglo-Chinese" park between 1782 and 1792, inspired by the Folie de Chartres. It has a cave decorated with Pacific shells, artificial waterfalls and a natural landscape highlighting the attractions of the site. This garden, a rare example preserved in France, is distinguished by its state of conservation and evocative character, close to the English creations of Capability Brown.

In 1808, the estate was sold before being acquired in 1857 by Alphonse Lavallée, a railway administrator. His son, Pierre Alphonse Martin Lavallée, developed a scientific arboretum from 1858, bringing together nearly 6,500 taxa, one of the richest in Europe. The collections, organized in botanical schools and pleasant trees, include remarkable specimens such as giant sequoias or weeping beech trees, now labeled Remarkable Trees of France.

The castle, enlarged in 1869 to accommodate the staff of the arboretum, and its park have been listed as Historic Monuments since 2009. The site, located in the Renarde valley, also inspired Marcel Proust during a stay in 1895, evoked in his prose poem Promenade. The picturesque garden and the arboretum, once labeled a remarkable garden, bear witness to the evolution of landscape and scientific tastes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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