luxury architect house for sale Bethune, France

An elegant mansion with a 1,000m² floor area, two self-contained apartments and 2,000m² of grounds, in Béthune town centre in northern France, 1 hour and 30 minutes from Paris. The mansion is characteristic of edifices built in the wake of the First World War by renowned architects like Marcel Griffon. It lies on the site of a former sugar factory, created by the Dellisse-Engrand family in Béthune in 1818. This was one of the first sugar factories in France. A commemorative plaque in tribute to Victor Amédée Dellisse, a civil engineer, member of parliament and politician honoured by Napoleon III, is still displayed on the edifice’s facade. The dwelling is crowned with a hipped mansard roof. The mansion, made of ashlar, is typical of 1920s neo-classical architecture. It is embellished with wrought-iron balcony balustrades with motifs, fine mouldings and sculpted cornices with a wealth of details. The building has a ground floor, a first floor and a second floor. It is hidden behind an electric wrought-iron gate and it stands in tree-dotted grounds. These walled grounds cover 2,000m². The brick walls here date back to the time of the military engineer Vauban and were built upon the ruins of a 16th-century Franciscan monastery: Les Récollets. Indeed, opposite the mansion’s facade there are the remaining columns and arches of a former church, which was listed as a historical monument in 1973. Part of the church’s central nave remains. A driveway with a cluster of flowers and shrubs in the middle makes it easy for cars to enter and leave the property.