A bit of history
Château Gassies, a rich past
2014, the beginning of the renaissance
In 2014, Géraldine and Behnouche Mostachfi both fell under the spell of this sleeping beauty. From then on, they set out to restore lustre to this glorious estate. Renovation work will continue until May 2019 with the idea of hosting receptions and guests from all over the world to share the enchanting inspiration of the place.
Enchantment depicted by the Latresne novelist Jean Balde (describing the Château de Valmont but no doubt inspired by Gassies) in "La vigne et la Maison" published in 1922:
"...And at the very top, behind a huge cedar tree, which spread its dark fans over a meadow, the house appeared, delicate, clean and harmonious with its swollen façade and the five steps of the porch so soft to climb. Paule also saw again the vestibule painted in light grey with a mat covering the freshly tiled floor, the oval dining room with its niches... and when you looked through the French windows, the landscape of light was soft and clear, with the bright silver flow of the river and Bordeaux like a purple tablecloth veiled with smoke"...
Traces of the "noble house of Gassies" can be found from the 14th century onwards. The de Gassies family, also known as La Tour de Gassies, belonged at that time to a long line of Bordeaux bourgeois, affiliated to the great illustrious families of the Gironde.
From the 14th to the 16th century, the greatness of the Gassies.
In 1135, Jean Gassies, draper and parishioner of Sainte Colombe in Bordeaux, acquired a tract of land in Latresne in the locality of St Julien. The Gassies family - including Raymond Gassies, jurat of Bordeaux (mayor in 1406 and 1407), then provost of the city until 1410, Thomas Gassies, sub-mayor of Bordeaux and ennobled at the end of the 15th century - went through the troubled period of the Hundred Years' War without a hitch, handing down the Gassies estate from father to son until the 16th century.
From the 16th to the 17th century, transmission to the de Gères family.
The marriage in 1571 of Jeanne de Gassies, Lady of Gassies, with Gaston de Gères links the noble house of Gassies to the powerful family of Gères, Lords of Camarsac.
18th century, construction of the present castle
The great-granddaughters of Gaston de Gères inherited the Gassies estate in 1712, and one of them, Catherine Cabiro De la Salle became Gassies' sole mistress in 1718.
In 1758, without an heir, she bequeathed the land of Gassies to her grand-nephew and godson, Jean-Joseph de Borie, Captain in the Bourbonnais regiment and Knight of the Royal Order of Saint Louis.
The latter had the present castle built between 1766 and 1780 on the foundations of the 17th century one. This new building, in the pure classical style of the 18th century, draws its originality and its sober elegance from its two square pavilions which oppose the central rounded forebody. This same order of the façade and the presence of the rotunda can be found in the Château de Tauzia in Gradignan built by Victor Louis, architect of the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, at the same period in 1778.
The two outbuildings were built on either side of the main facade of the manor house in the form of two parallel wings: in 1857 to the south, the wine storehouses and vats and in 1899 to the north, the stables, the courtyards and staff quarters as well as an orangery.
From the 19th to the 21st century, the property is sold several times.
The estate, then called "Château de Borie", remained in the de Borie family until 1844 when Jean Vergnes, a merchant and owner of the Port de l'Homme, acquired it, before selling it in 1853 to Jean Girard, owner and renter in Bordeaux.
Then, the Sanz family acquired the estate after the Second World War, and sold Château Gassies to Jean Egreteaud, a racing driver in the 1960s, who in 2011 pulled up the last of the estate's "Côtes de Bordeaux" vines.
