Château de Courances

In 1552, Côme Clausse, a notary and royal secretary to the King, acquired from the Lapite family the former seigneurial dwelling at Courances, at the western edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau.

His heir conveyed it in 1622 to Claude Gallard, another royal secretary, who is doubtless the builder of the present château, of an H-plan laid out on a rectangular platform that is surrounded by a moat.

In the 18th century, the house was modernized by Anne-Catherine Gallard, widow of Nicolas Potier de Novion, who opened up a proper cour d'honneur by demolishing the wall and entryway that had enclosed the courtyard.

[1] Haber and his son-in-law Count Octave de Béhague hired the architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur to restore the château in a campaign that lasted from 1873 to 1884.

[3] Actually, natural expanses of water at Courances stand in sharp contrast to the fountain machinery employed by Le Nôtre at Versailles and elsewhere.

In 1908, surprisingly Berthe de Béhague also decided to establish a Japanese hill-and-pond stroll garden to the east of the château and adjacent to a rustic teahouse called La Foulere which used to be an old sawmill.

Jean-Louis de Ganay upon his return from the war to his inheritance used his training in agriculture to begin restoration of the grounds in 1948, with his wife Philippine taking responsibility for the Japanese garden.