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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The House Flachère of Roustan is a private hotel built in the middle of the eighteenth century in Grignan (Drôme) by Mr Flachaire, member of a notable local family quoted in a letter from Madame de Sévigné. The building, typical of classical civil architecture, consists of a body of houses on the street with a symmetrical five-span facade, adorned with harp-angle chains and a mouled cornice. The central span, highlighted by carved staples and a wrought iron balcony bearing the initials FR (Rustan Flachaire), concentrates the rock ornamentation. At the back, a terrace connects the house to an old magnanerie, while a garden extends to the west and north, partially reduced by its construction in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

The interior, organized around a central vestibule with an honorary stone staircase with wrought iron ramp, preserves original decorations: carved fireplaces, stucco ceilings, and painted canvases in the ground floor lounges. Four rooms decorated with woodwork and stucco occupy the first floor, while a service staircase serves an additional floor. The Magnanery, which was transformed into a primary school for girls in 1902 by Régis Flachaire de Roustan, still houses the Sainte-Thérèse school in the early 2000s. The monumental portal and arch dating from 1767, now walled, bear witness to successive developments, such as the closing of the lateral passage around 1830–40.

Classified as a Historic Monument in 1982, the house protects its facades, its staircase, as well as the interior decorations of the living rooms and six bedrooms. The Flachaire family of Roustan, owner since the beginning, preserved the building despite minor alterations (paramedic partially destroyed around 1975, repaired in 1980). The school, founded by Régis Flachaire de Roustan, illustrates the adaptation of the heritage to modern uses, while perpetuating the link with local history: two family members were mayors of Grignan in the 19th century.

The garden, initially larger, was fragmented by outbuildings in the 19th century, as shown in the cadastral plan of 1836. Only the magnatery remains today, integrated into the school. The protected elements — balconies, staircase ramp, wallpaper — reflect the fascist of a provincial bourgeois home, while the initials FR and the date 1767 anchor the monument in the history of Grignan, between aristocratic heritage and community life.

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