Domaine LAVAGNAC : the place, the history

History

Renaissance of the Little
Versailles of Languedoc

Once known as the “Petit Versailles du Languedoc”, thanks to its boxwood parterre inspired by the gardener André Le Nôtre, Domaine Lavagnac is home to a magnificent 18th-century château listed as a historic monument. A semi-circular forecourt surrounded by clipped laurel hedges gives access to the gateway of the main courtyard. The castle is adorned with two external staircases that face each other. Their sculpted stone banisters are identical to those which the architect Augustin-Charles d’Aviler later adorned on the Peyrou promenade in Montpellier. A second porch, in line with the first, leads to the courtyard of the outbuildings. The main façade overlooks three large parallel terraces, the lowest of which has a parterre of pruned boxwood. Inside, the ground floor and the first floor are occupied by a Pompeian-style atrium completed in 1791. The reception rooms open onto the first level and the bedrooms, on the second, open onto a gallery supported by four columns. Two niches house oil lamps, copies of those found in Pompeii. The large chandelier was designed by Mathurin Cherpitel, architect of the Hôtel de Faventines in Paris. Finally, the chateau’s park is planted with cypress, pine, and cradle-cut plane trees. Wide, elegant driveways all around the estate are hedge-lined with laurel bushes.

History tells us that before the Revolution, the Château de Lavagnac was first owned by the Princes of Conti and then by the Daudé d’Alzon family. Over the years, it became the property of the Chastenet de Puységur and then the Suarez d’Aulan. Today, the castle’s silkworm farm, sheepfold, wine cellar and outbuildings still represent the estate’s former activities through agriculture, winegrowing and silkworm breeding, otherwise known as “sericulture”.