Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Vilmorin Castle, located in Verrières-le-Buisson in Essonne, has its origins in the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1650, the estate already belonged to François Thuret, a Parisian squire and bourgeois, and included a large house surrounded by 4 hectares of land. This central building, slightly modified, is still the heart of today's castle. The site, located on the north coast of the Bièvre Valley, was expanded and transformed by several influential owners, including artists, publishers and senior Parisian officials.

In the 18th century, the property passed into the hands of prominent personalities: Antoine Benoist, painter and sculptor of Louis XIV (1690-1698), then Philippe-Joseph Perrotin de Barmond, who adjusted buildings there at the beginning of the century. Michel-Antoine David, publisher of the Encyclopaedia, owned it from 1747 to 1768, followed by Louis-Balthazard de La Chevardière, musician and first mayor of Verrières in 1790, who continued the constructions. These transformations reflect the architectural and social evolution of the estate, linked to the intellectual and artistic elite of the time.

In 1815 the Vilmorin-Andrieux family acquired the castle to develop agronomic research. Philippe-André Levêque de Vilmorin, head of a renowned seed company, set up an arboretum and laboratories, making the estate a world centre for plant biology for 150 years. The park, which was declared a nature reserve in 1959, and parts of the castle, listed as historical monuments in 1965, bear witness to this scientific vocation. The family still retains the property, the site remains associated with figures such as Louise de Vilmorin, a writer who lived there and died there in 1969, or André Malraux, who lived there until 1976.

The castle, surrounded by a 4.5 hectare park today called Arboretum Vilmorin, illustrates both the architectural heritage of the 17th and 18th centuries and scientific innovation of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its history thus combines built heritage, botanical advances and cultural life, with traces like the monument erected in 1908 in homage to the Vilmorin family, still visible near the old town hall.

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