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Origin and history

Hotel Beurnier-Rossel is a private hotel built between 1772 and 1774 in Montbéliard, Doubs, by architect Pierre-Louis-Philippe de la Guêpière for Georges-David Rossel, lawyer and regency adviser, and his wife Anne-Madeleine Beurnier, a Protestant family close to the Cour des Württemberg. Located 8 Place Saint-Martin, opposite the Temple Saint-Martin, it embodies 18th-century bourgeois elegance with a remarkable interior decor, including a plaster ceiling decorated by a Marca artisan and a ceramic stove signed Jacob Frey.

In 1917, the last descendant of the Beurnier bequeathed the hotel, its furniture and works of art to the city of Montbéliard to make it a museum. Initially, from 1843 to 1937, it houses the collections of the Museum of the Dukes of Württemberg, before becoming in 1995 the Musée Beurnier-Rossel, dedicated to art, history and traditions of the principality of Montbéliard of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The building, partially classified and listed as historical monuments in 1987, retains protected architectural elements, such as the façade, the large living room or the wrought iron staircase.

The museum exhibits a rich collection of branded furniture (including Couleru-signed pieces), Protestant liturgical objects, traditional costumes and music boxes made in Sainte-Suzanne, the former French capital of this know-how. Among its masterpieces, a ceramic stove classified in 1988 bears witness to the technical refinement of the period. The hotel also welcomed in 1814 the Tsar Alexander I of Russia, who came to pay tribute to his mother, Sophie-Dorothée de Württemberg, who had spent her youth there.

The western wing of the hotel has a ridged vault, while the right wing, raised in the 19th century, and the garden (transformed into a public square in the 20th century) house two historic gates displaced from other buildings in Montbéliard. Today owned by the municipality, the hotel combines architectural heritage and local memory, illustrating the Protestant and princely influence on the region.

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