France · Restored
Château de la Mercerie
Château de la Mercerie is a 19th–20th century château in Magnac-Lavalette-Villars, Charente, France, enlarged in the 20th century in an Italian Renaissance manner by the Réthoré brothers and nicknamed the "Versailles charentais." The site combines an older neo‑Gothic manor element with a very long classical, colonnaded façade added from 1947 onward. The built ensemble, interiors and outbuildings were listed as historic monuments in 2012.
Its prime
1950
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1950
What Château de la Mercerie looked like in its prime.
A very long, pale-stone rectangular block facing southwest, dominated by a 220-metre-wide, colonnaded Italianate façade of recessed tall arches separated by slender stone columns, a broad entablature and a balustraded roof parapet; beneath it a lower level of large semicircular arcades opens onto terraces. The château sits on a grassy slope with clipped hedges and lawns in front and is backed by mixed woodland and an arboretum; the older neo-Gothic manor sits at the left end of the composition.
Its story
The story of Château de la Mercerie.
From the 16th to the 18th century the Rousseau family were lords of La Mercerie, ennobled in 1595 when Gilles Rousseau was appointed the King's squire. The estate passed through the 1799 marriage of Marie-Julie Rousseau de Magnac de la Mercerie to Paul Mesnaud de Saint-Paul, whose family held it until the 20th century. The oldest surviving part of the château, a neo-Gothic manor, dates from the late 19th century.
In 1924 the Réthoré brothers — Raymond, an industrialist and later Gaullist MP for the Charente, and Alphonse, a self-taught architect — bought the 600-hectare estate from the Mesnaud de Saint-Paul family. From 1947 they added a façade 220 metres wide, 20 metres deep and 15 metres high, imitating Italian Renaissance architecture; the original manor was to be demolished for stylistic unity, but the scheme was never completed, earning the château its nickname, the "Versailles charentais".
Alphonse died in 1983 and Raymond in 1986, and their unrelated heirs had to sell the collections at auction in 1987 to pay off debts. In 1988 the château was acquired by the famous Parisian antique dealer Bernard Baruch Steinitz, who did little to maintain it, and in 2008 it was sold to the Parisian property company Volta. The ensemble, its interiors and outbuildings were listed as historic monuments in 2012.
Step inside
12 places to explore in 1950.
The record describes 12 distinct spots at Château de la Mercerie — including 8 interiors: grand salon, salon central, salon called le vernet and more. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Create History
Recreate Château de la Mercerie with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1950 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Whose castle
Clans who held Château de la Mercerie.
The families that held Château de la Mercerie for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Rousseau
Lords of La Mercerie from the 16th to the 18th century; ennobled in 1595 when Gilles Rousseau was appointed the King's squire.
Mesnaud de Saint-Paul
Held from the 1799 marriage of Paul Mesnaud de Saint-Paul to Marie-Julie Rousseau until the estate's sale to the Réthoré brothers in 1924.
