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29.04.2022

LE MAS DE CHASTELAS : HOUSE OF ARTISTS

JUST A FEW MINUTES FROM SAINT-TROPEZ, NESTLED IN THE HEART OF A PEACEFUL HAVEN OF THREE HECTARES NEAR THE VINEYARDS OF BERTAUD BELIEU, THE MAS DE CHASTELAS IS AN AUTHENTIC AND SECRET TROPEZIAN ADDRESS WHOSE HISTORY IS LINKED TO THAT OF THE BERTAUD SEIGNEURY.

At the end of the 19th century, Maurice Pessonneaux du Puget and Philomène Thaneron de Bertaud lived the life of great landowners runs between the Château de Bertaud, their main residence, the Chesnaie de Bertaud, and a residence in Saint-Tropez, on the town hall square, where they spent the winter.
La Chesnaie, the current Mas de Chastelas, was then their weekend residence, in the style of Roman villas. Sheltered by its thick walls, Philomène and Maurice find the peace and quiet and the holiday resort that the Château does not offer. The Mas is surrounded by farm buildings where their employees practice vine cultivation and silkworm breeding. It is indeed the great era of trade between China, which supplies the bombyx mori butterfly species, the silk is produced in Lyon where the spinning mills of the rich silk workers are located.

The estate is a fabulous ensemble. The castle, sitting at the water's edge and at the mouth of the river Belieu. The stables house twenty horses. Saint-Tropez is still a small village withdrawn from the world. There is even a small railway station named Bertaud: the train des Pignes, which linked Toulon to Saint-Raphaël by the coast until 1948, stops at La Foux under a 400 year old pine tree called Pin de Bertaud. This national curiosity even appears in the natural science textbooks of the French schoolchildren. It is also found in the paintings of Paul Signac, the great painter of Saint-Tropez.

A HOTEL IN 1967

On the grounds of Bertaud's former silk worm nursey, known as "la Chesnaie", a hotel was built at the end of the 1960s. The owners at the time, Gérard and Dominique Racine, transformed the building, created about thirty rooms, a swimming pool and welcomed the greatest artists and intellectuals of the time, including Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin and Eddy Barclay, Johnny Hallyday... The site, nestled in the heart of a splendid park bathed in sunshine, is also a magnificent film location. Éric Rohmer shot The Collector and Claude Berri brought together Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu. Numerous scenes from the famous series Saint-Tropez (1996-2008) were also shot around the hotel's swimming pool. For more than fifty years, the Mas de Chastelas has been gently cultivating the heritage of the beautiful history of the Dolce Vita tropezienne. And the wine-growing estate that has kept the name Bertaud perpetuates the agricultural tradition of this land steeped in history on the 65 hectares bought in 1989 by its current owner. In spite of the passing centuries, the evolution of this territory has not deviated much from its origins... to our great delight!