La Mirande in Avignon, France

La Mirande in Avignon - France

This Avignon mansion has become a "place of pilgrimage for men and women of taste". It is not difficult to understand why: one can only be impressed by the memories that this hotel brings back to life and one would be hard pressed to find a more beautiful and more complete illustration of several centuries of French decorative arts. La Mirande occupies an elegant residence located just opposite the Palais des Papes - seat of five successive popes in the 1411th century. When the Roman Catholic Church was ruled from Avignon. The house, which dates from the XNUMXth century, was built on the charred ruins of a cardinal's palace, destroyed by fire in XNUMX.

Inside, we discover an abundant and supremely elegant combination of all styles: a Renaissance dining room with coffered ceiling, a rococo Louis XV bookcase with painted chinoiserie panels, a Belle Époque-Rothschild style living room, a small neoclassical winter dining room ... Added to this is an impressive Baroque facade. La Mirande offers a superposition of riches which bear witness to centuries of taste and culture; something like a catalog of French stylistic and decorative history. You would therefore be entitled to assume that this is a heritage accumulated over the ages. What is surprising, however, is that in reality all of this was created practically from nothing. It is true that this magnificent residence belonged for more than two hundred years to the Pamard family, one of the oldest and most prestigious in Avignon. But, alas, it is far from having contributed to beautify it. When Achim and Hannelore Stein acquired it in 1987, they found only a sinister XNUMXth-century Gothic arrangement that had earned the house the reputation of being "the darkest in all of Avignon." Both passionate about art and antiques, they then made the bet to restore it to the splendor it should have had in other circumstances. If the project might seem somewhat ambitious, to Achim Stein, a retired civil engineer who had ended his career directing the construction of Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia, it was exactly the kind of challenge he and his wife wanted to raise. Working with the Parisian decorator François-Joseph Graf, the Steins designed a project based on the assumption that Pierre Mignard, son of the famous court painter Nicolas Mignard who, at the end of the XNUMXth century, had designed the baroque facade of the house , would have continued his work inside.
Then they took into account all the changes and improvements, which, according to successive fashions, a wealthy family would have made there for several generations. According to Martin Stein, the son, now director of the company La Mirande (which also has a cooking school), the objective was to create the illusion that everything had always been such. The result is convincing: one has the impression of finding oneself in the middle of the well-preserved heritage of three hundred years of refined life. In practice, it did not take three hundred to achieve this illusion, but all the same two as well as eleven million dollars and extraordinary care taken to the smallest detail. No effort or expense was spared. All hotel curtains are lined with silk; the window panes were hand-blown; we crumpled the wallpapers before gluing them to give them texture and patina. The banister has been copied from that of the neighboring castle of Barbentane. The 26 rooms and one suite are individually decorated and furnished with antiques. The Renaissance ceilings have been restored, and whenever possible, reclaimed materials (stone, wood, tiles) have been used rather than new.
The result ? An extraordinary and refined journey through the most beautiful chapters in the history of French decorative arts, in the historic city of Avignon.

Address: La Mirande, 4, place de la Mirande, 24000 Avignon, France

Telephone: +33 4 90 85 93 93 - Fax: +33 4 90 86 26 85

Website : http://www.la-mirande.fr/#/fr/intro/