Château du Soleil

En un regard

Le château en bref

Château du Soleil stands in the commune of Beynost, in the Ain. The estate is first mentioned in 1530, when it belonged to the nobleman François Grolier, whose family — of Italian origin and settled in France since the 13th century — kept it until 1747. Nicolas Grolier, captain of Lyon in the 17th century, obtained from Louis XIII the rights of high, middle and low justice over the land of Le Soleil. The estate then passed to Roch Fourrat in 1747, and to Pierre Antoine Barou, the king's procurator general, in 1767. Confiscated as national property during the Revolution and sold at auction in 1794, it was bought back by Barou's widow. It changed owners several more times in the 19th and 20th centuries, before being acquired by the commune of Beynost in 1982 and then divided among various private owners. The present château, built in the 18th century, survives today only as remains. A round tower, originally a dovecote, was given medieval-inspired crenellations in the 19th century. The oldest part of the site is a farm, still occupied by a farming family.