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Origin and history

The Hotel Marceillac is an Art Nouveau building built in Castelsarrasin (Tarn-et-Garonne) between 1909 and 1912, at the initiative of Pierre-Adrien Marceillac, a former cook who became a hotelier. The architect Antonin Maurou, a Montauban winery agent, designs a modern building with a facade decorated with plant motifs in staff (pittosporum leaves) and an innovative structure: a central atrium illuminated by a steel window, distributing rooms and reception rooms. The hotel, inaugurated in 1912 under the name Modern Hotel, includes furniture from the Austrian manufacturers Thonet and J&J Kohn, including room 17, a rare example of preserved Art Nouveau furniture.

Pierre-Adrien Marceillac, born in 1853, began as an apprentice butcher before training in hotels in Vienna and Toulouse. In 1884, he moved to Castelsarrasin and bought the Grand Hôtel de France et de l'Ange, and in 1908, a building on rue de l'Egalité to build his ambitious project. The management of the hotel remains family: his son Paul (cooker) and grandson Adrien (graduated in hotels) accompany him until the successive deaths in 1931-1935. Hélène and Marie-Rose Marceillac then took over the establishment until 1952, before Jean Marceillac (grandson of Pierre-Adrien) modernized the hotel until 1973, abandoning the restaurant to devote himself to accommodation.

The hotel's architecture reflects the codes of the major hotel palaces of the time: symmetrical distribution of spaces, galleries serving the rooms, and eclectic decorations mixing Art Nouveau (ferronerie, plant motifs) and Fine Arts (neo-rock mascarons). At the back, a terrace under metal marquise overlooks a garden where a rock remains around a piece of water. The stables and sheds, transformed into a garage, complete the whole. The hotel is listed for historical monuments on 18 May 2006 for its facades, roofs, atrium, and interior elements (scaling, galleries, reception kiosk).

Family transmission continues until today: since 1991, Pierre and Marie-Hélène Marceillac, great-grandchildren of the founder, run the establishment. The site preserves original elements such as Thonet chairs, Kohn armchairs, and marble fireplaces, testimony to its century-old history. A local bibliography (2012 for its centenary) and recent articles highlight its status as a jewel of Art Nouveau in Occitanie, while documenting its role in Castelsarrasin's tourist and social history.

The building illustrates the regional adaptation of Parisian or Viennese architectural models, with particular attention to natural light (glass, marquise) and internal traffic. The interior decorations, although partially redesigned, retain coherent sets from 1910 to 1930, reflecting the changes in taste and the technical innovations of the period (steel structure, varnished ceramics on the facade).

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