Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Saint-Martin-de-Seignanx, located in the Landes, finds its origins at the end of the 16th century, when Jean de Saint-Martin, Sénéchal des Landes, undertook the reconstruction of the western part, flanked by two round towers. This first house corps, completed around 1610, marks the beginning of a series of ambitious architectural transformations, reflecting the seigneurial status of the Saint-Martin family in the region.

In the mid-17th century, Bertrand de Saint-Martin and his wife Marie de Lucmayour launched important works, as evidenced by their monograms ("B.d.S.M" and "M.d.L") adorning the ceilings and dome of the monumental staircase. This central pavilion, designed around 1650, embodies the climax of the castle's classical project, with a staircase decorated with paintings, now considered one of the jewels of regional architecture. Their daughter, married to Jean-Baptiste-Alexandre de Oro, passed the estate on to this family, before it was sold in 1772 to the Juliac-Pujole.

The French Revolution led to the confiscation of the castle, then owned by Marie-Joseph de Juliac. Purchased in 1804 by Arnaud Daguerre, a Bayon bourgeois, the estate then passed to the Personnaz family by the marriage of his daughter to Louis-Jean-Gabriel Personnaz in 1875. The nineteenth century was marked by major restoration campaigns: suppression of the drawbridge in 1888, restoration of the staircase paintings by Auguste-Antoine Durandeau in 1894, and reconstruction of the north tower in 1929, completing the symmetry of the plan in L.

The castle, inscribed in historical monuments since 1994, illustrates almost four centuries of history, mixing seigneurial heritage, architectural transformations and adaptations to successive periods. Its L-shaped plan, combining house bodies, round towers and monumental staircase, makes it a remarkable testimony of the evolution of the Dutch castles between Renaissance and modern times.

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