Bellerive Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Bellerive Castle stands on the shore of Lake Geneva, at Collonge-Bellerive, on the left bank of the lake (canton of Geneva). Despite its name and its fortress-like appearance, it was designed as a warehouse: to circumvent the taxes that Geneva levied on lake traffic, the Duke of Savoy Charles-Emmanuel II had salt stores built there in the 1660s and 1670s, flanked by a commercial harbour, to plans by the engineer Daurolles, completed from 1671 by the architect François Cuenot. Its two towers, its harbour closed off by chains and its artillery alarmed Geneva and Bern, which saw in it a fortification contrary to the Treaty of Saint-Julien; the crisis subsided after the Duke's death. The building, typical of seventeenth-century Savoyard architecture, remained linked to the salt trade until its sale as national property in 1797, after which it was renovated and altered several times. Privately owned, it belonged to Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who made it his residence and laid out its gardens there. It is classified as a Swiss cultural property of national significance.