Apartment Bourg-en-Bresse (01)
A 96m² apartment in a 15th-century chateau listed as a historical monument with two hectares of grounds, nestled in a village in France’s Ain department, between Lyon and Geneva. The chateau looks down at the village and river from an estate with terraces and thick stone buttresses. The edifice, built at the southern end of France’s beautiful Revermont natural area, towers like a sentry. Once you have gone through the entrance gate to the grounds, a vast car park stretches in front of you. And on the right, there is a tree-lined driveway. This drive leads to old outbuildings that stand around a court: there is a farmhouse, a barn, and a former building for nuns that has been turned into accommodation – the latter’s architecture is a token of the place’s authenticity. South of their rendered elevations and barrel roof tiles, the chateau and its grounds come into view. There are vast lawns and shady footpaths. The chateau faces east and stands out for its large size with four floors. A gravelled space redeveloped in the 16th century lies in front of it. The edifice’s impressive rendered elevations are punctuated with many tall windows that herald a bright interior. A hipped roof of flat local tiles crowns the building. A huge square tower adjoins one end. At the end of the 15th century, this tower housed the tomb of Philibert II the Handsome, Duke of Savoy, and the chapel of Margaret of Austria, his wife, daughter of Emperor Maximilian I. The staircase here now bears Margaret’s name. The tower, made of exposed dressed stone, has Renaissance-style architecture. The positions of its stone-mullioned cross windows, capped with arched or triangular pediments bearing coats of arms, follow the course of the stone staircase that the tower houses. The dual-aspect apartment lies on the second floor – the top one – and it has the advantage of lying just one storey beneath the roof terrace. It has two large bedrooms, a bright lounge with an open kitchen space to be converted, a bathroom and a separate lavatory. The entrance door is in the tower: the ‘Tour Marguerite’. The site, the chateau and the outbuildings have been listed as historical monuments since 2004.
$283,300
By Patrice Besse