En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de Penthes, in Pregny-Chambésy near Geneva's international quarter, is an eighteenth-century country house that replaced a medieval fortified house, surrounded by moats and flanked by round towers, which belonged to the lords of Visencier. By marriage, the estate passed to the Saconnay family, then to the Charrière de Penthaz family, from which the name ‘Penthes’ derives. The Hôpital de Genève sold it to Alexandre de Sales, who had the fortified house demolished and built a rural residence in its place. Remodelled in the nineteenth century by Charles Henri de Bontems and then by the Sarasin family (L-shaped plan, south veranda), it received a mock tower by Louis Birkigt in the twentieth century. It housed the Musée des Suisses dans le monde and opens onto a nine-hectare public park.