Valencia, Rhône 26000

In the center of the capital of Drôme, surrounded by a 4-hectare park, a château from the early 20th century, classified as a historical monument, in the Art Nouveau style. The building was erected in the early 1900s at the request of Alfred Gayet, mining engineer and inventor of the gold extraction and enrichment process. To carry out this work, he was joined by the renowned architect Pierre Blein, with contributions from painter Guillermin, stained-glass artist Thomas, decorator Boulanger, and landscape architects Luizet and Barret. The construction of the main house and its various outbuildings (gatehouse, dependencies, dovecote, and hydroelectric plant) as well as the park layout were completed between 1900 and 1904 under Blein's direction. The château was adorned with Art Nouveau elements: remarkable painted decorations by Guillermin and Mangier, glass windows from the Thomas workshop, and ceramics by Boulanger and Villeroy & Boch. The residence, with ashlar stone facades and canal clay tile roofs, consists of a central block and two perpendicular wings, the right one forming a rotunda and the left one a square tower. It has four levels, including a basement, with multiple cellars and about twenty rooms distributed across the three living floors: a grand vestibule, two living rooms, game or reading rooms, a dining room, a kitchen and other utility spaces; on the ground floor a vast hall, five bedrooms and four bathrooms; on the first floor a spacious rotunda room, four maid's rooms and five attics, one of which is convertible; on the second floor. The landscaped park, enhanced by animal sculptures, covers 4.3 hectares and includes a pond. Originally, canals were fed by the Épervière river and terminated in a series of basins designed according to the 'rocailleurs' method. It should be noted that the elements protected as monuments historiques include the dwelling in its entirety (interior and exterior), the park, the outbuildings, the gatehouse, the disused factory building, and the dovecote.