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Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Voisins, located in Louveciennes in the Yvelines, has its origins between 1650 and 1675, as evidenced by the plan of D. Viguier in 1675. Acquired in 1696 by Louis Oger de Cavoye, he then moved to Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon-Condé, Princesse de Conti, who planned a reconstruction by Claude Nicolas Ledoux without taking action. This first castle, considered old, was demolished around 1820 by Count Hocquart de Turtot, who had it rebuilt in its current configuration.

In 1857, Charles Tavernier bought the estate and added the Neighbors' pavilion, surrounded by a garden along the way to Prunay. After the 1870 war and the Prussian occupation, Tavernier, insufficiently compensated, gave up the castle in 1874 to banker Guillaume Beer and his wife Elena Goldschmidt. The latter animates a literary salon, welcoming Leconte de Lisle, which writes La Rose de Louveciennes and dies there. When Beer died in 1913, Elena shared the estate: she kept the pavilion while the castle returned to her uncle, Robert de Rothschild.

The castle was listed as a historical monument in 1948, after its acquisition in 1946 by the BNCI (ancestor of BNP Paribas), which made it a training centre. The architect William Bouwens van der Boijen oversees his renovation for Guillaume Beer. A London burial house houses the only daughter of the Goldschmidt-Beer couple, highlighting transnational family ties. The castle d ́eau, added to the 20th century in the park, complements the modern amenities of the estate.

Today, privately owned, the Neighbors' castle illustrates the architectural and social transformations of an aristocratic estate, from the hands of the nobility to the financiers, while maintaining its historical and cultural prestige.

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