Château de Tourrettes-sur-Loup

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château de Tourrettes-sur-Loup overlooks the village square, in the Alpes-Maritimes. The site is mentioned as early as the 12th century under the authority of the Sicard family, which in 1224 obtained from the Count of Provence the promise of its ancestral possessions and, around 1232, had the Château des Valettes built to control the road to Grasse. In 1364, the Count of Provence sold the castle to Rainier Grimaldi. After 1388, when the Count of Savoy took possession of the county, the building was granted to Guichard de Villeneuve, whose heirs had the present castle built in 1430, incorporating an older 12th-century tower. Abandoned in the 18th century and then sold as national property (bien national) during the Revolution, it was looted and damaged. The municipality subsequently acquired it in order to preserve the site and gradually installed the town hall there, officially inaugurated in 1977. The building retains a Louis XIII staircase with balusters, restored in the 20th century. Its second floor now houses contemporary art exhibition rooms.