Château du Haut-Gesvres

En un regard

Le château en bref

North of Nantes, in the commune of Treillières, the Château du Haut-Gesvres grew out of a shared inheritance. In 1837, the vast Gesvres estate was divided between the Haentjens sisters: the upper part, which at that time had no residence on it, passed to Élise and her husband Pierre Joseph Maës, who had a country house built at the place known as La Rivière. Thirty years later, Edmond Doré-Graslin enlarged it with two wings, which gave it the silhouette of a château. The south-east façade retains a restrained classicism, enlivened by a few Baroque inflections. The estate then had several lives: it belonged to Étienne Sébert, mayor of the commune, who grew a botanical collection there, and later became a girls' school run by nuns until 1976. Bequeathed to the commune in 1990 along with a 7.5-hectare park, the building has been restored step by step by volunteers since 2014, who uncovered interior arcades that had long been concealed, ahead of a more ambitious project launched in 2024.