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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

Scharrachbergheim Castle, located in Scharrachbergheim-Irmstett in Lower Rhine, is a building probably dating back to the 15th century, after the destruction of a previous castle on the Scharrach hill. Its rustic stone walls, visible on the north and east facades, bear witness to this medieval period. The site, surrounded by a ditch and with four truncated-angle turrets, adopted a U-shaped plan attested by 1839, although architectural changes took place in the 18th and 19th centuries, notably under the impetus of the Hazier Baron.

The castle experienced several phases of restoration, as in 1673 (dated window), in 1727, then in the middle of the 19th century, where the Baron du Hazier added a wooden staircase signed Duquemy (1845) and reused 17th century cabinets for the interior chambranles. Damaged during the Thirty Years' War, he passed into the hands of influential families, including the Leopolds in the 18th century, before being acquired in 1870 by the painter Louis Schutzenberger. The latter transformed the grand hall of the 16th century into a workshop and decorated the sites with mural paintings, before yielding the estate in 1885 to the merchant Frédéric Mewès, including the son, architect Charles Frédéric Mewès (famous for the Ritz in Paris), in inheritance.

Ranked a Historic Monument since 1982 for its facades and roofs, the castle retains defensive elements such as a shooting slot in the northeast turret and an old drawbridge replaced by a dormant bridge. The communes, perpendicular to the barn-stable, date back to the 16th century, while the park, of recent creation, houses lapidary elements reported. Traces of re-use, such as the lintel engraved 1530 on the west wing or the 1527 marked carriageway door (often read wrongly as 1727), highlight its complex architectural evolution.

In the 20th century, the castle remained in the descendants of Charles Edouard Mewès, Alsatian and Parisian architect (1889-1968). Its history reflects the social and artistic changes of Alsace, between medieval heritage, noble transformations in the 17th and 18th centuries, and residential or creative vocation in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, it embodies a hybrid heritage, mixing defense, seigneurial habitat and bourgeois place of life.

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