Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Aiguillon hotel is a former mansion built between 1669 and 1672 in Croisic, in the Loire-Atlantique department. Commanded by Jean Le Fauhé, Sieur de Cadouzan, and his wife Jeanne Le Botteue, from the families of merchants and lawmen, his construction interrupted the death of Le Fauhé in 1672. The widow then sold the building in 1673 to Charles Morvau, Sieur de Kerliviny. This building, marked by an imperial dome and a portal decorated with Corinthian columns, remains a rare example of baroque civil architecture in the region.

In 1709, the hotel passed by inheritance to Jean Yviquel, then mayor of the Croisic. Without descendants, his property was divided in 1765, and his nephew Jean-François Dubochet became his owner. The residence remained in the Dubochet family until 1904, when Marguerite de Calbiac (née Dubochet) gave it to the commune. Transformed into a city hall, it was inaugurated in 1908 under the mandate of Emmanuel Provost, then mayor, and the rest until 2008.

Ranked a historic monument in 1926, the Aiguillon Hotel is distinguished by its right-angled plan, with a central pavilion housing a monumental staircase. His name, whose origin remains uncertain, could pay tribute to the Duke of Aiguillon, Governor of Brittany, although no direct link had been established. A stained glass window of the chapel of Pen-Bron, in La Turballe, represents this emblematic building.

Located in Donatien-Lepre Square – named in honour of a pharmacist whose legacy allowed the acquisition of the hotel – the building embodies a century marked by the rise of maritime commerce and the affirmation of local elites. Its architecture reflects the prosperity of the merchants of the Croisic, then active port linked to the fishing and the Atlantic traffic. The building also illustrates the evolution of urban uses from private residence to municipal power.

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