Mertert Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Mertert Castle (D'Schlass vu Mäertert) is a neobaroque-style castle built in 1870, located on Rue du Parc in the historic center of Mertert. It is privately owned. The area around the castle once housed a Roman villa rustica, followed by a larger farm in the Middle Ages, which belonged to the Abbey of St. Maximin in Trier until the French Revolution. In 1797, it was seized by the French. The current castle was built in 1870 by Dominique-Antoine Pescatore (1842–1916), a descendant of the Pescatore family. In 1873, he also had a park designed according to the plans of Édouard André. At the entrance to the park stand two large sculptures of a tiger and a lion by Henri Jacquemart. After his death, Antoine Pescatore sold the castle in 1887. The new owners were Paul Simonis, son of former Minister Charles Mathias Simonis, and his wife Nelly Autier, who owned a textile factory in France. In 1927, the owners sold the entire property to a hotelier who turned it into the "Parc Hotel." During World War II, a chemistry lab was set up in part of the building, and a prisoner-of-war camp was established in the park. In July 2019, the Commission for Cultural Heritage (Copac; formerly Cosimo) issued a positive opinion to classify the castle as a national architectural heritage site.