Chateau de Villette: The Splendor of French Decor

Description

This intimate tour evokes the lifestyle of eighteenth-century French nobility and provides a lesson in the art and technique of historic house and garden restoration. The Chateau de Villette was built in Condecourt outside of Paris at the end of the seventeenth century according to the plans of Louis XIV's architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart and surrounded by luscious formal gardens designed by Le Notre. Its magnificent artistic and artisanal heritage has been carefully preserved and restored by the current owners and enhanced by Jacques Garcia's recent renovation. With its magnificent hexagonal hall, Chateaude Villette boasts the first formal dining room conceived for a French chateau, complete with carved stone buffets and corner fountains. Other rooms have been enhanced with fabulous silks rewoven in Lyon, and furnished with a world-class collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century furniture and paintings. The gardens, with their shaded bosquets, sculptures, obelisks, and cascading water features have been restored according to their original designs. The privately-owned chateau was classified as a historical monument in 1942, and has been the scene of numerous films, including The Da Vinci Code.

Guillaume Picon, historian, editor, and curator, is the author of A Day at Chateau de Fontainebleau (2016) and Versailles: A Private Invitation (2011), published by Flammarion, and several books on French history and painting. Bruno Ehrs is one of Sweden's leading photographers. Flammarion has published his work in Villa Balbiano: Paradise Restored on Lake Como (2018), Chaumet: Parisian Jeweler since 1780 (2017), A Day at Chateau de Vaux-leVicomte (2015), Vacheron Constantin: Artists of Time (2015), and One Saville Row, Gieves & Hawkes: The Invention of the English Gentleman (2014).

"... Fully restored to its original glory, Chateau de Villette offers visitors an unforgettable experience of lavish hospitality that combines modern comforts with aristocratic lustre, which a new book by Flammarion, Chateau de Villette : The Splendor of French Decor , beautifully illustrates." - YAZTER