Château de Tauzia: A Neoclassical Country House in Gradignan
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.1
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- French
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page6 sections
History
Château de Tauzia is a neoclassical country house in Gradignan, France, constructed in the late eighteenth century as a Bordeaux chartreuse, a long, relatively low country-house form associated with the region. Its plans are attributed to Victor Louis, the architect of Bordeaux’s Grand Théâtre, while the work was carried out by the master mason Jean Alary.
From the Tauzia fief to a country house
In 1768, Jean-Joseph de Castéra, a law professor and lawyer at the Bordeaux Parlement, purchased the Tauzia fief from the Pomiès family. The Parlement of Bordeaux was a sovereign high court under the French monarchy. A chartreuse was built later in the eighteenth century, although its exact construction date is uncertain.
Castéra’s heirs sold the estate in 1784 to Jacob Diaz Pereyra, a merchant and member of the community of Jews known as Portuguese Jews. The property changed hands again in 1803–1804, passing to the director of the Bordeaux customs service.
Petersen’s enlargement
In 1827, the property passed to Gustave Petersen, a merchant and consul of Sweden and Norway. Petersen enlarged the residence and transformed it into a château. He also commissioned an approximately 20-hectare English-style park from the landscape designer Louis-Bernard Fischer.
Occupation, restoration, and protection
German and Italian forces occupied Tauzia between 1940 and 1944 during the Second World War. In 1944, the French Forces of the Interior, the armed French Resistance forces formed during the conflict, took possession of the château. After they left, the family recovered a severely damaged house.
The château remained vacant until 1960, when Hubert Calvet and his wife, Marie-Amélie, began restoring it room by room. Château de Tauzia was classified as a historic monument in France by an order dated 27 July 1965.
Remains
Château de Tauzia consists of a neoclassical Bordeaux chartreuse whose central single-storey body is organized around a prominent rotunda. The rotunda is topped by a dome and flanked by two pavilions, each rising to an upper storey. Petersen’s nineteenth-century enlargement added a porch supported by two pairs of columns with Ionic capitals, classical capitals marked by paired spiral forms, together with wings set at right angles to the original building. These wings also contain an upper storey. Balustrades conceal the slate roof.
Interior and park
The dining room occupies the rotunda. Its restrained stucco decoration is complemented by a wood-mosaic parquet floor, preserving the refined character of the central interior.
An English-style park of approximately 20 hectares surrounds the château. It was designed by Louis-Bernard Fischer as part of the nineteenth-century transformation of the estate.
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