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Origin and history

The Hotel de Lavernette is a neoclassical mansion built between 1789 and 1792 in Besançon, Doubs department, by the architect Claude-Antoine Colombot for Count Abel-Michel Bernard de La Vernette Saint-Maurice. Commanded at the dawn of the Revolution, it represents the last aristocratic construction of this type in the city. The count, captain of the regiment of Orleans and lieutenant of the Marshals of France, appealed to Colombot after his marriage in 1782 with Augustine de Choutés de Rosières, daughter of a president of the Besançon Parliament. The construction site, exceptionally documented by family and municipal archives, reveals a collaboration with exceptional artisans, such as the Piedmontese stuccotor Joseph-Marcel Marca or the cabinetmaker Antoine Munier.

The seven-span, street façade is distinguished by an alternate fronton forebody and a baluster balcony, while the inner courtyard houses stucco decorations with sponsors' initials. The honorary staircase, treated in bosses imitating marble, leads to preserved interiors, including the large living room, the alcove room (with a ceiling decorated with poppy and roses), and a circular room on the second floor. The archives attest to the source of the materials, such as the glass windows of the Champagney glass factory (Haute-Saône) or the woodwork inspired by Colombot's drawings. The successive owners — the Jacquin families (from 1883 onwards) and the current purchasers (since 1975) — maintained the integrity of the site, allowing for a partial inscription to the historic monuments in 1979.

The hotel illustrates the typology of the bisontin hotels of the eighteenth century, with a back yard and commons in return for square. Its interior decor, almost intact, includes original huisseries, partly re-used 17th century parquet floors, and chimneys signed by Colombot. Among the remarkable elements are the four terracotta busts of the serl berry, symbolizing the seasons and ages of life, or the original closure system of an oculus window. The documentary wealth of the project — plans, invoices, archival photographs — makes it a rare testimony of the aristocratic art of living in Franche-Comté on the eve of the Revolution.

The site, located 3 rue du Lycée in the area of La Boucle, was sold in December 2019, marking the end of three centuries of transmission between only three families. Its history reflects the social changes of Besançon, from the Ancien Régime to the industrial era, while preserving an exceptional architectural and decorative heritage, now protected and studied.

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