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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The log house of Angers, built in the 4th quarter of the 16th century (circa 1572), is a civil building representative of the Second Renaissance. Originally composed of two separate housing units, it was rapidly unified into a single home. Its anterior facade, made of wood carved with torchi hounds, initially had a double gable on two square floors, now replaced by a two-paned roof. The interior staircase, with four wooden cores and balusters, as well as an original fireplace, still remain. The sculpted decoration, very little reworked, includes anthropomorphic motifs (cariates, atlantes) and engraved monograms.

The house was built for two owners: Pierre Tafoureau, tailor of clothes, and a certain Michel (first name unknown), as evidenced by the partial dates (1572) and the monograms "P and T" and "G and M" engraved on the potlets and atlantes. A tax declaration of the mid-18th century confirmed its origin in two houses, already unified before 1583. In the 17th century, it belonged to the bookseller Nicolas Chesneau, brother of a Parisian printer-library. Subsequent changes include the disappearance of carved supports in the 18th or 19th century, the addition of chimneys (XVIIth–XIXth centuries), and the suppression of gables on street in the 20th century. Restored in 1994, it retains traces of its original partitioning.

The architecture reflects the constructive techniques of the era, mixing shale masonry and wood panel, while the carved decorations (atlantis, cariatids, ecus) illustrate the influence of Italian Renaissance models. The monograms and the date of 1572, although partially erased, offer direct testimony of the sponsors. The successive transformations (stairs redone in the 17th century, fireplaces added, modified cover) reveal a continuous adaptation to the needs of the occupants, while preserving original structural elements such as the stairway cage.

The house was listed in the Historic Monuments by order of 19 November 1993, recognizing its heritage value. Today, it is privately owned and bears witness to the evolution of the Angevin urban habitat between Renaissance and modern times, as well as to the occupations of its first occupants (cutler, bookseller). Its present state is the result of a restoration in 1994, which did not restore the original gables but preserved the carved decorations, rare examples of the Second Renaissance in the Pays de la Loire.

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