Photo : Varmin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Pontchartrain
A text of 1325 already mentions a castle at 'Pontem Cartonencem', at Jouars-Pontchartrain in the Yvelines, but it is not until 1595 that a description records a large main building surrounded by ditches with a drawbridge, a barn, a dovecote and a farmhouse. Sold to Antoine de Buade de Frontenac, the château was transformed: an arms gallery linked the old farmhouse to the main building, and the building was turned to face west.
In 1609 it was bought by Paul Phélypeaux, Secretary of State, who built a chapel in the small garden, a remnant of the hortus conclusus mentioned in 1595. Louis II de Pontchartrain engaged Le Nôtre in 1693 to create a park. Sequestrated in the Revolution, the château was bought by the d'Osmont family, then passed to Henckel von Donnersmarck and to the Dreyfus family from 1880 to 1932.
