Château de Rastignac: A Neoclassical Country Residence in France
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- France
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page10 sections
History
Château de Rastignac is a neoclassical country residence in La Bachellerie, France, built in the early nineteenth century on the site of an earlier castle. Its present structure was constructed between 1811 and 1817, while its southern portico was added in 1829. The château is known for its classical design and for the unresolved debate surrounding its resemblance to the White House in Washington.
The Earlier Castle
An earlier castle, known as Hospitium de Rastinhaco, is recorded from 1483. In 1572, it was burned after its owners, Raymond Chapt de Rastignac and his two brothers, were condemned during the Grands Jours de Périgueux, extraordinary judicial sessions held to prosecute serious offences in the Périgueux region.
A replacement residence was conceived in the 1780s, but the project was interrupted by the French Revolution. Pierre Chapt de Rastignac eventually began a new construction campaign. Demolition and building work started in 1811 and continued until 1817.
The Nineteenth-Century Residence
The château was built by Mathurin Salat, known as Blanchard, who worked as both architect and contractor. Five steward’s account books covering the years 1811 to 1817 record the progress of the works. They also helped establish Salat’s role and the dates of the main construction campaign. The accounts mention the contractor-mason Jean Delmas, who received nearly 4,000 francs, and Salat, who was paid 3,160 francs. Salat disappears from the accounts after October 1815, when the main structural work had been completed.
The main building cost 4,000 francs according to the accounts, excluding the English-style garden. The interiors were decorated in the French Empire style, the formal classical style associated with the First French Empire. In 1817, Pierre Chapt de Rastignac’s daughter, Zenaïde, brought the château as her dowry to François Marie de La Rochefoucauld, Duke of Liancourt. Their son sold it in 1878 to Auguste de Peyronny. Ownership later passed to Henri-Marie Georges de Peyronny, then to his nephew, the retired naval captain Octave Lauwick and Lauwick’s wife. The dancer Cléo de Mérode, a rival of Sarah Bernhardt, stayed at the château during the Lauwick family’s ownership.
War Damage and Restoration
On 30 March 1944, German troops of the Brehmer Division burned the château during a reprisal operation against the French Resistance, the network of movements opposing German occupation and the Vichy regime during the Second World War. The fire destroyed the interior and left the exterior limestone shell. Thirty-three paintings from the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, which had been hidden at the château since the beginning of the war, disappeared. The works included paintings by Cézanne, Manet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, and van Gogh.
The château and its park were classified as historic monuments in 1946, with the protection covering the façades, roofs, outbuildings, and park. The vestibule and stone staircase received a separate classification in 1951. Yves-Marie Froidevaux, chief architect of France’s historic monuments, restored the château in 1952. The structure was stabilized and reroofed approximately eight years after the fire, while reconstruction of the interior was completed in 2003. After a prolonged period of abandonment, looting, and severe deterioration, seven Dutch purchasers acquired the property in co-ownership in 2000 and divided it into seven residences.
The Question of Architectural Influence
Château de Rastignac has often been compared with the southern portico of the White House, particularly because of its curved central projection and Ionic columns. Several explanations have been proposed, including a drawing by Charles-Louis Clérisseau, a possible connection with Thomas Jefferson’s visit to Bordeaux in 1789, and links with projects associated with Leinster House in Dublin. Another possibility is that both buildings drew on French neoclassical models, including forms associated with Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s Hôtel Thellusson in Paris. The relationship has not been established with certainty.
The chronology also complicates the idea that the château directly served as a model for the White House. The White House was under construction from 1792, and its colonnade, envisioned by Jefferson in 1792, was not built until 1824, after the building’s destruction in the 1814 fire in Washington. Jefferson’s possible knowledge of Salat’s drawings at an architectural school in Bordeaux therefore remains conjectural. A prize offered by Leslie-E. Acsay in 1971 to identify the château’s architect and construction date was awarded in 1972 to Noël Becquart, curator of the Dordogne departmental archives, whose research used the steward’s account books.
Remains
Château de Rastignac is built of limestone and combines a symmetrical neoclassical plan with features also described as neopalladian. The property includes the principal château, outbuildings, an orangery, and a park. Its most distinctive exterior feature is the southern portico, a curved or semicircular projection with an Ionic colonnade. Added in 1829, it belongs to a classical architectural vocabulary that revived forms associated with ancient Greek and Roman buildings and is also found in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French architecture.
The Principal Building
Southern Portico
The central portico has a domed, projecting form and a semicircular curve that gives the southern elevation its characteristic appearance. Its Ionic colonnade has prompted comparisons with the White House and the Maison carrée d’Arlac. The portico belongs to a later phase than the main building, since it was constructed in 1829 after the 1811 to 1817 campaign.
Vestibule and Staircase
The vestibule and stone staircase are separately identified in the historic-monument classification. They form part of the château’s surviving interior and retain the architectural importance recognized by the 1951 classification.
Outbuildings and Later Division
The estate’s surviving group includes the outbuildings and an orangery in addition to the main château and park. Following the twentieth-century subdivision, five residences were created within the principal building and two within the orangery. The fire left the main structure as an exterior limestone shell, but stabilization, roofing, and later interior reconstruction returned the building to use as a divided residential property.
