Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Sucy-en-Brie, located in the current Val-de-Marne, finds its origins in a fief belonging to the abbey of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés. In 1577, François Le Cirier acquired the rights, transforming the existing house into a seigneurial residence. The estate expanded in 1581 with the purchase of Pacy's neighboring fief. It was only in 1640 that Jean-Baptiste Lambert, king's secretary councillor, bought the seigneury and began landscape developments (parterlands, basins, orangery). His brother Nicolas Lambert, great master of water and forests, decided in 1660 to shave the old house to erect the present castle, entrusted to architect François Le Vau.

The construction was completed in 1662, followed by the addition of a monumental gate in 1675 and an orangery in 1687. The castle, designed as a recreational residence for the Lambert family — owner of the Lambert hotel on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris — passed into the hands of several generations until 1719. Nicolas Lambert de Vermont, the last heir, then sold it to Jean-François-Christophe La Live, from a family anobligated by the purchase of a royal office. The Lives retained the estate until 1780, when it was transferred to César Ginoux, squire and secretary of the king.

César Ginoux, mayor of Sucy-en-Brie from 1806 to 1838, preserves the castle during the Revolution by means of a fictitious sale and remodelling of the park "in English", adding factories today disappeared. However, the estate was looted during the Prussian occupation in 1870, where only the library was spared. The castle was finally sold in 1892 to Lady Louisa Meux, a British social figure, to her niece Marie Ginoux and then to her brother Philibert. After his death, the estate changed hands again in 1912, passing to the Bes de Berc family.

In the 20th century, the castle and its park were transferred in 1956 to the Caisse des Dépôts, which built the Green City (21 towers) in the 1960s. Left behind, the castle barely escaped demolition in 1959 thanks to the intervention of the Historic Monuments. Rached by the town hall in 1969, it was classified in 1975 and restored: orangery became a showroom in 1989, while the main body, inaugurated in 2007, now houses the Maison des Arts et des Musiques. The restored farmhouse has been home to the Sucy Museum since 1990.

The architecture of the castle, typical of French classicism, is characterized by a central stone body flanked by two pavilions, topped by a mansard roof in slate. The south facade, decorated with busts and sundials, overlooks a courtyard of honour accessible by a monumental door. Inside, the central hall serves a stone staircase and rooms that have been renovated over the centuries, such as the library or living room. The park, sloping towards the Morbras valley, once offered an unobstructed view to Paris.

The carved decorations, attributed to Van Opstal, and the interior arrangements reflect the influence of successive owners, from Lambert — close to Louis Le Vau — to Ginoux, via the Meux. Despite the vicissitudes (wars, abandonments, transformations), the castle remains a major testimony of the art of living of Parisian elites in Île-de-France in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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