Château de Pourtalès

The Château de Pourtalès was built around 1750 as a small manor house in the Robertsau neighborhood by Joseph Guérault, then contractor of the works of the king in charge of the construction of the fortifications of Strasbourg.

[1] In 1802, Baron Paul-Athanase Renouard de Bussierre, who was from a wealthy industrial family from Strasbourg, bought the house and expanded the manor into a gracious Château.

[2] Comtesse Mélanie, a renowned French salonnière and Lady-in-waiting to Empress Eugénie, was the only surviving child of Baron Alfred Renouard de Bussière, head of the Royal Mint of Paris.

Prominent guests of the château included European aristocracy and members of the arts, including Albert Schweitzer, Franz Liszt, Napoléon III and his wife, the Empress Eugénie, the Princes of Belgium and Russia, Ludwig I of Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Baden and the Princess Metternich.

After the War, it was the site an Eastern European University for a short time,[7] but was closed again following the construction of the Berlin Wall.