The Château de Valmer is a complex located northeast of Chançay, a French commune in the Indre-et-Loire department of the Centre-Val de Loire region. It was built in 1524 by remodeling a medieval castle of the Binet family and was renovated and expanded in the second half of the 17th century. After numerous other changes and repairs during the 19th and 20th centuries, the main building was almost destroyed by a fire in 1948.
The remains of the neo-Renaissance style complex are among the many châteaux in the Loire Valley and, together with the associated terraced baroque garden, have been listed as a monument historique since 1 May 1930. The park and garden have been designated a Jardin remarquable since 2004. They can be explored for a fee together with the castle chapel carved into the rock, which 12,000 visitors visit every year.
History
Valmer was first mentioned in 1434. At that time, it was owned by Catherine de Bueil, who was the first known owner of the domain. On 23 July 1461, Jacques Binet bought it. In 1500, his son Macé was listed as the owner. From his marriage to Jeanne Briçonnet came the son Jean, Maître dʼhôtel to the King and Queen of Navarre. Between 1524 and 1529 he had the medieval castle that had existed until then extensively changed and made into a more livable residence. At the same time, a castle chapel was hewn into the tuff rock on which the château stands, on 28 November 1529, by the Bishop of Autun consecrated and consecrated on 13 March 1535. When the castle was looted by Protestant soldiers during the Huguenot Wars in 1562 it belonged to Jean Coustely, the mayor of Tours. The looters did not hesitate to torture Jean's daughter and burn the soles of her feet in order to get hold of the family's suspected money in a hiding place on the castle grounds.
Jean's descendant, Claude Coustely, sold Valmer on 23 May 1640, to an advisor to Louis XIII, Thomas Bonneau, who made extensive remodeling and additions to the complex. The interiors were reworked in the Louis XIII style and, to the northeast of the building, Bonneau had a pavilion built in the same style from 1646 to 1647 to house the palace administrator. Because the new lord of the château found the old rock chapel too dark and damp, a new chapel was built on the west side of the steward's house called Petit Valmer, which was blessed on 25 October 1647. To the south, Bonneau also had new farm buildings built and the gate erected as an entrance to the grounds. The present gardens and park also date back to Thomas Bonneau. Although there had already been an associated terraced garden since the first château from the 16th century, modeled on Italian Renaissance gardens, Bonneau had them reworked in the Baroque manner and additionally created the upper terrace (Haute terrasse in French). He placed numerous vases and statues in the newly-designed gardens and park. One known from him is a white marble statue commissioned by from the sculptor Jacques Sarazin, depicting Leda and Zeus (as a swan), and has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1980.
After the death of Thomas Bonneau, the estate passed through numerous hands and never belonged to one owner for long. In 1691, Etienne-Dominique Chaufourneau was recorded as the owner, but by 1703, Valmer belonged to Gatien Pinon. In 1736, the property was up for sale again and was purchased by M. Duvelaer, the commander of the port of Lorient, before being bought ten years later by Nicolas Chaban de La Rivière on 5 July 1746. His descendants remained owners until 1888. He increased the property's value by buying the neighboring seigneurie, La Côte, on 17 April 1756. On his death in 1763, he left the château and its land to his sister Marie Chaban and her husband, Jacques Valleteau de Chabrefy, who bequeathed it to their son, Baron Thomas Valleteau de Chabrefy, in 1766. After his death in May 1792, the château passed to his widow, Marie-Françoise Barré. On 4 August 1810, the Seigneurie La Côte was again divided from the estate and given to Jérôme, Marie-Françoise's younger son. The elder son, Thomas II, was to inherit Valmer in return, which happened in November 1825. Thomas II had the frescoes in the younger castle chapel restored in 1826, as evidenced by his coat of arms cartouche in the chapel. He may also have had the tall Doric column in the center of the hornbeam labyrinth, which is still preserved today, and numerous vases placed in the garden. They probably come from the Château de Chanteloup, which was dismantled and sold piece by piece in 1823.