The history of the Chateau and the Golf de La Cordelière

A CHATEAU COMBINING TRADITION AND MODERNITY

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Architecture:

   The Louis XII-style castle, an amalgamation of Gothic and Renaissance, is a building of great and rich appearance in which nothing is left to chance.  

   The foundations of the facades, the chains and the frames of the bays in the basement are made of Pierre-Chêvre rock with rustic blue rubble fillings, a kind of hard limestone peculiar to the region. The steps and balconies are in fine Chamesson stone with steps and shelves in Comblanchien rock. At their upper part, the facades are in Savonnières stone with filling in red Perchois bricks. The balustrades of the steps and balconies, the loggia of the large living room and the dormers of the crown in terracotta, stone tone, constitute an interesting application, both from the point of view of the decorative effect and the sharpness of the edges.

    Through a double staircase on the east facade, you enter the great hall, adorned with hunting trophies and lit by the large stained-glass window (work of the Parisian glassmaker Tamoni). This hall separates the ground floor into two parts: On the right, the reception rooms: dining rooms (Petite Cordelière side), upholstered in Cordoba leather (currently the clubhouse relaxation lounges) and the lounges overlooking the park (currently the Clubhouse bar and restaurant).  

   On the left: the living rooms, apartments of the Mother Countess and her husband, each containing a study and a toilet room. You reach the 1st floor by the main staircase. This floor is divided into twelve guest rooms with wardrobe, bathroom and WC. Hervé and Jehanne's apartments are located in the right wing. The children's bedrooms, the bedroom of Count François in the left wing.   

   On the 2nd floor, five guest antechambers and a study room occupy the southern part while the laundry, the servants' rooms and the attic occupy the opposite part.

Modernity:

    But what makes this castle so special are the elements of modern comfort with which it was provided from the time of construction (1892). We owe this particularity to the architect, Mr. Sauger. Chief architect of the city of Paris and therefore initiated into the needs of modern urban housing, he strove to meet the same conditions of comfort in a large country house.

    Above the cellars dug in the rock, the castle includes a basement, buried by a few steps but whose ceiling is 3 meters above the ground. Also, this floor is widely lit so as to give full satisfaction to the services fitted there: the large kitchen, the pantry, the crockery (place where game is stored), the mulberry tree, the hunting room and weapons, the bathroom and the room of physical culture, the workshop and the laboratory of photography, the dining room of the staff, the coal-fired boilers.

    There are also petroleum engines for supplying water tanks. This makes it possible to have hot water on the floors, all the rooms being equipped with toilets and toilets. Two service stairs (one at each end) and a freight elevator put the basement in communication with the upper floors.

    All floors are equipped with a fire department and a drinking water service which operates using a hydraulic ram. A main sewer was installed thanks to a sewer belt receiving wastewater of all kinds, transporting it to settling chambers before being lost in the surrounding woods.

    To protect the many orange trees that surrounded the castle from the cold, an “orangery” was erected, a long building with large bay windows. The orange trees, but also all the other fragile plants, laurels, roses, palm trees or lemon trees spent the winter there. Their movement was done on rails that were installed for the occasion, in wagons pushed by 8 men.

And now ......

This Renaissance-style castle, inaugurated in 1900, was during the first half of the 20th century, a high place of Chaourçoise life where the Chandons let champagne flow ... Moët et Chandon.

   At the beginning of 1957, Count Frédéric CHANDON DE BRIAILLES, owner of the premises, agreed to lease the estate to the newly created Association Sportive et d'Etudes Agricoles de la Cordelière which gradually transformed the park into a golf course, recognized today hui as one of the most beautiful in France. The property is sold to a Belgian industrialist before the members of the association, through its Section Immobilière created in October 1963, buy back the property.

  The castle now, on the ground floor, has a secretariat, a games and television room, a bar, a lounge, a restaurant and above all the billiard room which crossed the 20th century without giving way to modernity. Its walls hung with pink satin and its heavy purple velvet hangings conjure up the image of an era of pomp and happiness. On the upper floors, at the Petite Cordelière and in the outbuildings, rooms have been fitted out to accommodate the players.

    Thus, of this prestigious estate, only the chapel where their ancestors rest has been preserved by the Chandon de Briailles heirs.

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THE SOURCES :

"The Chandon de Briailles family and the Cordelière estate in Chaource" by Roger Barat (published in 1998)  - Article published in the Aube Nouvelle (summer 2000)

Summary prepared by Michel Colin, Annie-Claude Lauvergeat and Laetitia Mialet.

Some of the period photographic documents were kindly provided by Roger Barat. Modern photographic documents and other period photographic documents were kindly made available to us by Madame Béatrice Mialet and Monsieur Michel Colin.