Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Poutz Hotel, located on the Place du Fromage in Arudy (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), is a former mansion built in 1624 by the family of Labarthe, on the site of a late 13th century secular abbey. The building, similar in style to the Peyre Hotel in Pau, was ransacked during the French Revolution, losing its symbols related to the Ancien Régime. He then passed to the Poutz family, as evidenced by the cadastral matrix of 1837 mentioning Pierre-Amédée de Poutz as owner.

In the 19th century, the hotel hosted the Savings Bank (from 1876) before being bought in 1901 by the latter, then by the city in 1914 to set up a gendarmerie brigade. During World War I, he served as a makeshift hospital. The gendarmerie occupied it until 1967, when restoration works (directed by architect André Grésy) allowed its opening in 1972 as a museum of Arudy - house of Ossau, dedicated to the archaeological and ethnological history of the valley of Ossau.

Architecturally, the hotel is distinguished by a central, "imperial" roofed pavilion, flanked by two unequal wings, with woodwork and fireplaces from the seventeenth century still visible. Ranked a historic monument in 1970 for its facades and roofs, and in total in 2015, it also maintains a wrought iron gate. Its history reflects the social and political transformations of the Béarn, from the Old Regime to the present day.

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