"We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive tour. It's a castle that can be experienced, rather than visited.
As Chairman of the Fondation du Château de Hautefort, Pierre Mordacq has a unique vision of this heritage. In undertaking the major works of 2025, he wanted to bring another dimension of Hautefort to life. "We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive visitor experience. A castle that you can experience, more than it visits itself."
As Chairman of the Fondation du Château de Hautefort, Pierre Mordacq has a unique vision of this heritage. In undertaking the major works of 2025, he wanted to bring another dimension of Hautefort to life. "We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive visitor experience. A castle that you can experience, more than it visits itself."
As Chairman of the Fondation du Château de Hautefort, Pierre Mordacq has a unique vision of this heritage. In undertaking the major works of 2025, he wanted to bring another dimension of Hautefort to life. "We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive visitor experience. A castle that you can experience, more than it visits itself."
As Chairman of the Fondation du Château de Hautefort, Pierre Mordacq has a unique vision of this heritage. In undertaking the major works of 2025, he wanted to bring another dimension of Hautefort to life. "We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive visitor experience. A castle that you can experience, more than it visits itself."
"We wanted a richer, more coherent and more sensitive tour. It's a castle that can be experienced, rather than visited.
When you arrive at Hautefort, you enter a world of beauty, character and authenticity. It's something that children and adults alike can really appreciate. This experience begins as soon as you approach, when the silhouette of the ancient fortress stands out against the sky. All the senses are stimulated. Hautefort can be seen, heard, tasted, touched and breathed. The exceptional silence that reigns in the main courtyard, the 17th-century stonework with its patina of age, the organic vegetables grown in the château's kitchen garden and the 360-degree views over the Périgord Noir landscape - the château offers an ode to one value: beauty. We overlook the superb village where you can stroll, eat or visit the workshops of the many craftsmen and women. Sharing this world of beauty takes the form of various activities throughout the year. Visits to the château are enhanced by events for all ages: children, adults, families, film buffs, theatre-goers and craft enthusiasts. Workshops highlight the beauty of the château and the estate, and the work of the gardeners in particular.
As you'll see on your visit, Hautefort is a place bursting with activity. It's a collective, living work of art, run by a passionate team of talented people! You can see the heritage of centuries, the enrichment of the estate by successive generations, but also the implementation of contemporary sustainable management practices. Recycling, self-sufficiency and respect for the biosphere are in fact ancient traditions that we have preserved and adapted to create a place that is firmly rooted in the present.
Far from just talk, the commitment of the Hautefort team is concrete and led in 2016 to the award of the eco-label for the environment, making Hautefort the first cultural site in France to be awarded this label. We are working to convey the majesty of architecture as much as the generosity of nature.
The château de Hautefort Foundation was created in 1984 by Baroness Henry de Bastard, née Simone David-Weill, who bought the château with her husband in 1929. Today, my wife, a great-niece of Baroness de Bastard, and I are continuing this commitment. So the Baroness de Bastard family has been committed to Hautefort for nine decades and almost four generations. Simone de Bastard and her husband first restored the château in its entirety. This superb restoration benefited from the taste, personal collections and experience of the David-Weill family, great supporters of culture for several generations, notably the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Louvre.
In 1968, when a fire destroyed most of the main building, the desire to restore the château a second time went hand in hand with a strong desire to share and pass on the work. And so the Foundation was born. The château has emerged from this tragedy like a phoenix, renewed and shrouded in a new energy, thanks to the combined efforts of Hélène and Michel David-Weill, the public and local authorities - who have come together under the aegis of the Foundation.
Today, therefore, it is in the form of a Foundation that our family is pursuing its mission: to restore and share the beauty of Hautefort. The Foundation offers the Château the best of both worlds: the commitment that goes hand in hand with the strong attachment of a family, professional management and the transparency of governance under public supervision.
The skills at work at Hautefort are quite exceptional, combining stonemasonry, ironwork, roofers, cabinetmakers, master glassmakers and others. And that's not all, given the scale of the restoration programme. In fact, many of these craftsmen are based in or around the Hautefort village and deploy their skills on projects all over France.
Since the second restoration in the late 1960s, several major works programmes have been undertaken to ensure that the estate's walls, roofs and interior and exterior spaces are preserved in optimum condition. In 2015 and 2016, all the roofs were re-roofed with regional slates, identical to those installed in the 17th century, followed in 2017 by the courtyard of honour and the chapel, work on which will be completed in 2020, and which has been extended to include a relaxation area.
At Hautefort, beauty lives and renews itself, as demonstrated by our collaboration with François Rouan, a leading French artist who created the superb stained glass windows in the chapel. This renewal is essential, enabling us to continue to see Hautefort with fresh eyes and to rediscover it each year.
Enjoy your visit!
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