Château Pastré

Château Pastré
Southern facade
Location in Marseille
General information
Town or city	Marseille, 8th arrondissement
Country	France
Coordinates	43°14′0″N 5°22′24″E / 43.23333°N 5.37333°E / 43.23333; 5.37333Coordinates: 43°14′0″N 5°22′24″E / 43.23333°N 5.37333°E / 43.23333; 5.37333
Inaugurated	1862
Design and construction
Architect	Jean-Charles Danjoy

The Château Pastré, formerly known as the Chateau de Montredon, is a nineteenth-century building in the suburb of Montredon to the south of Marseille, France. Originally the property of a wealthy merchant family, as of 2012 it housed the Faïence pottery museum, the Musée de la Faïence de Marseille. The grounds of the chateau are a public park.

Eugène Pastré (1806–1868) and his wife Céline de Beaulincourt-Marle (1825-1900) belonged to a wealthy family of Marseille shipowners and merchants. Between 1836 and 1853 the Pastré family accumulated 120 hectares (300 acres) of land between Pointe Rouge and the Grotte Rolland in the south of Marseille, which they made into a park. The natural vegetation would have been scrub, Aleppo pines, oaks, laurel and juniper. Before the Canal de Marseille was constructed to this point, the family had to go to great lengths to obtain water, with which they irrigated and created lawns in the lower levels with gardens of vines, cereals and orchards of almonds, figs and apricot. The Pastrés had three large houses built in the park between 1845 and 1865: the Château Estrangin, Château Pastré and Château Sanderval.

The Parisian architect Jean-Charles Danjoy designed the Château Pastré, the largest of the buildings, completed in 1862. The three-story building was designed to meet the needs of its owners for a place where they could hold entertainments for many people. The Nouvelle Revue in its gossip section Chronique de L'Élégance in 1884 described a play being presented at the home of Mme Pastre.

The chateau is located between the hills of Marseilleveyre and the Mediterranean Sea, with large windows looking out over the park. The exterior design is elegant and warm. Jean Danjoy chose to design a reinterpretation of a building from the Louis XIII period. In the facade he blended bricks from Marseille with blonde stone from Arles. These meet in rhythmic curves and counter-curves.

Eugène and Céline's son Ange André Pastré (1856-1926) was made a Roman Count. He married Claire Goldschmidt around 1885, and they had four children: Odette, Diane (1888-1971), Jean André and Louis. Jean Pastré was born on 2 December 1888 in Marseille, and inherited the title of "Count". In 1918 he married Louise (Lily) Double. The couple had three children. Jean Pastré played on France's polo team in the 1924 Summer Olympic games. He died in Paris on 29 June 1960 at the age of 71. Their daughter Nadia Pastré helped in the escape lines for Allied prisoners during World War II.