The château, now an official historical monument of France, is surrounded by a moat, having been built on the site of a medieval castle of the same name.

The château, which is an official historical monument of France, is located on a 60 hectare estate to the north-east of the village of Beaumesnil, 140 km west of Paris and midway between the towns of Lisieux and Évreux.

[3] The château, one of France's smaller châteaus, designed and built by John Gallard during the reign of Louis XIII between 1633 and 1640, is constructed of stone and brick walls with a slate roof on the ruins of the motte-and-bailey castle that had stood on the site since medieval times.

The east and west facades are heavily decorated with carvings — windows have grotesque masks inspired by the Commedia dell'arte, intertwined letters "M" and "D" allude to Marie Dauvet Des Marets, wife of Jacques, Marquis of Nonant and daughter Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery, Chancellor of France while the shields of the Montmorency-Laval branch of the Laval family appear above the main doorways.

[7] The château's library and 16th-century bookbinding museum were built up by the German-Jewish financier Hans Fürstenberg (1890 - 1982),[Note 1] son of Carl who had fled Nazi Germany in 1937.

Shortly after Fürstenberg's death, the library was further depleted when a number of items were sold to fund the Fondation Fürstenberg-Beaumesnil.

[10] Beaumesnil was first mentioned in the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911 (the setting up of the Duchy of Normandy as part of the lands of the Counts of Meulan.

[11] During the Hundred Years' War, the castle fell to the English in 1415 and in 1418 was given to Robert Willoughby by Henry V.[12] Beaumesnil was retaken by the French in 1441.

In 1927, de Maistre sold the chateau to the American company Domaine of Beaumesnil, Inc., whose controlling director was Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, member of the House of Romanov and first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.