The
Rothschilds are known as one of the greatest European banking dynasties
ever established, amassing the largest private fortune in modern
history. The family is less well-known for anything to do with
squalor, ruin or decay. But just 5 miles from the Notre-Dame, beyond the
lush green lawn of the Edmond de Rothschild park, standing defiantly
behind a thick wall of shrubbery and bramble is the ghostly figure of
the Chateau Rothschild.
The neo-Louis XIV castle has been
abandoned since the Second World War when the Rothschild family fled to
England before the arrival of the Germans, who would later inhabit and
plunder the house during the four-year Nazi occupation of Paris. After
the city’s liberation, the U.S. army were the next self-service tenants
at the Chateau Rothschild– their stay didn’t do the residence any
favours either. The Rothschilds never returned to their home and over
the decades it has been left to deteriorate while serving as a
playground for graffiti artists and vandals.
Urban explorer Edouard Bergé took the liberty of visiting inside the discarded edifice and brings us these rare photographs. Let’s take a tour…
The palatial structure was purchased by
James Mayer de Rothschild in 1817, one of the richest men in the world
at the time and the most powerful banker in the country, accredited with
playing a major role in making France an industrial power following the
Napoleonic Wars. It is said his personal fortune (not including his
family’s) must have been at least five times the fortune accumulated
by Bill Gates.
(c) Edouard Bergé via Urban-Exploration.com
This once grand house was certainly
built to reflect the Rothschild fortune and boasted a regal English
garden with picturesque waterfalls and beautiful indoor frescoes by
Eugène Lami. For over eight years, James and his wife Betty, hosted the
most lavish parties of the epoch within these walls.
As major art patrons of the time, their
guest list regularly included the likes of Rossini, Chopin, Balzac,
Delacroix and a who’s who of the financial, entrepreneurial and
political world. Chopin even dedicated his Valse Op. 64, N° 2 in C sharp minor to the Rothschild’s daughter Charlotte.
An artist's interpretation of the Rothschild Chateau
As the clinking of champagne glasses,
laughter and music rang through the halls, it would have been
unimaginable to think that the Chateau de Rothschild would be doomed to
suffer the damage and neglect that has left it in the sorry state we
find it today.
As if it were the omen that would seal
its fate, the design of the Rothschild house was inspired by Jules
Mansart’s Château de Clagny, a 17th century French country estate
northeast of the Château de Versailles that had also been abandoned,
neglected and consequently demolished less than a century after its
construction.
Alas, the Chateau de Rothschild was
saved a similar fate in 1951 when it was declared a historical monument.
In 1979, James Mayer de Rothschild’s youngest son, Baron Edmond sold
the castle for a symbolic 1 France to the city, which in turn,
immediately sold it off to a wealthy Saudi Arabian buyer for 50 million
Francs (something close to 7 million euros today). More than thirty
years later, under the same ownership, the house is still in ruins, with
an estimated 30 million euro price tag for the renovation.
(c) Edouard Bergé via Urban-Exploration.com
While the park, named after Baron Edmond
de Rothschild, remains open to the public who can picnic on the lawn
with a front row seat to this spectacular abandoned ruin– if it doesn’t
turn one’s stomach off the cheese and crackers that is. Certainly, there
are no guided tours for this historical monument of Paris; the Chateau
de Rothschild is closed to visitors indefinitely (well, not for your
average visitor anyway).
…
Where to find the Chateau Rothschild in Paris
(c) Paris-bise-art
You can find the entrance to the
Edmond de Rothschild park at 3 Rue des victoires, Boulogne-Billancourt
(Hauts de Seine, just a hop over the road from the South East entrance
of Bois de Boulogne) Tel: 01 55 18 66 80, Website here.
But I must clarify again, that the chateau itself is not open to visitors, even though the graffiti suggests otherwise.
(c) Paris Bise Art
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