The restoration of the castle of Saint Bonnet les Oules
The architect BRESSON was passionate about the Middle Ages and had carried out numerous researches throughout his career in order to get closer to the techniques of the masters of that time. This allowed him to give back the characters of their primitive architecture to the historical castles of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance that he had to restore.
In this context, the restoration of the castle of Saint-Bonnet-les-Oules is an exception in the whole of his works, since, instead of giving back all the character of a medieval castle to this prestigious building, he transformed it in a Renaissance style. He removed the low-pitched tile roofs and replaced them with high-pitched slate roofs, significantly raising the height of the castle.
He made large openings in the central part of the castle on the plain side to break the medieval aspect. He added a turret on the ground floor containing a spiral staircase, balconies and above all a central circular staircase with a large skylight topped by a glass roof.
The only room to which he gave a medieval touch is the castle's kitchen. Certainly recovering the stones of the old chapel, he will add stone vaults with a central pillar.
Inside, there is a beautiful antique furniture that catches the attention of the visitors: the bedrooms with their canopied beds, the large living room decorated with magnificent paintings representing Louis XV, the Dauphin, the Marshal of VILLEROY (who was intendant in Lyon of the Lyonnais-Forez Province), and Messire Gaspard de CORBEAU de MONTVERDUN, lord of Fontenelle, knight of Saint-Louis, founder of the dragoon regiment.
On the first floor is the vaulted kitchen with a black and white checkerboard floor, the large dining room opening onto a large balcony with a mosaic floor, the small dining room with frescoes on the ceiling and Aremberg parquet, the small living room, the large living room and the library with a herringbone parquet.
On the upper floors there are 21 rooms, and in the attic there are 6 servants' rooms, a linen room, a drying room for clothes..