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Origin and history

The Château de Cohendier, also known as Château des Tattes, is an old fortified house built between the 14th and 15th centuries in the commune of Saint-Pierre-en-Faucigny, Haute-Savoie. Its name comes from the Francoprovençal coindi ("a pretty place"), while the Tattes appellation evokes a "land in waste" in Savoyard. Originally, he belonged to a family of notaries, the Cohendier, who owned noble property in the area, such as the Castle of the Scale. The family, anobligated in the 15th century, gradually extinguished, and the estate passed through alliances to the Menthon-Beaumont, then to the Montfort in the 17th century.

The castle, transformed in the 19th century in troubadour style by Baron Ludovic de Viry, preserves a marked Renaissance architecture: a body of square houses flanked by round and hexagonal towers, sled windows, and a park through the Borne. The site, equipped with a mill and sawmill in the 18th century, became a rest home in the 1970s. Its park, partially open to the public since 2010, is home to centuries-old cedars and hydraulic remains, such as the Bédière (Savoyard channel).

The property changed hands several times: sold in 1909 to an Austrian baron, sequestered during the First World War, then acquired by the Métral family in 1948. Local scholars, such as Lucien Guy and Georges Chapier, highlight his remarkable state of conservation and his historical interest in the Faucigny. The coats of arms of successive families, especially the Viry family, still adorn the facades.

The Cohendier, influential notaries of Rumilly-sous-Cornillon's commission, accumulate Noble Goods and combine with prestigious lines such as the Lucinge or the Chissé. Their decline in the sixteenth century led to the transmission of the castle to the Menthon-Beaumont via the marriage of Jeanne Cohendier with Jacques de Menthon. The wills of the Montfort (1624, 1632) and the marriage unions (such as that of François-Joseph de Viry in 1731) marked the transitions of ownership until the 20th century.

The Baron de Viry, the last major modifier of the castle between 1860 and 1880, added neo-medieval elements and restored the hexagonal tower. World War I impacted the estate, then owned by an Austrian, before it was bought by local families. Today, the castle illustrates the architectural evolution of the Savoyard fortified houses, between medieval defensive function and modern aristocratic residence.

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