Château Marly

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Château Marly, also known as the Château Partouneaux, is a 19th-century holiday residence located in the Vignasses district of Menton. It was built around 1840 by Jean-Baptiste de Partouneaux, an inspector at the Ministry of Finance and son of the Napoleonic general Louis de Partouneaux, who had retired to Menton from 1832. The building consists of two adjoining rectangular blocks: a main block of one storey above the ground floor, roofed with flat interlocking tiles and crowned by a crenellated wall-walk carried on corbels, and a single-storey wing to the north-west, bordered by a terrace. Its medieval-inspired ornamentation and regular massing make it one of the earliest examples of aristocratic pleasure houses built in Menton. In 1857 the château hosted the Empress of Russia and her family, a tent having been erected in front of the façade for a reception held in their honour. In the early 20th century the property passed into the hands of the Austrian Philip von Schoeller and then, after the First World War, of the American Charles Goddard. The estate, then planted with vines, olive trees and citrus, covered about 1.09 hectares according to the 1862 land register. The château remains a private property today.