The ''Château de Costaérès'' is located on the island of Costaérès in the territory of the French commune of

Trégastel Trégastel (; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department of the region of Brittany in northwestern France. Trégastel is situated between Perros-Guirec and Pleumeur-Bodou. Lannion is 10 kilometres away. Population Inhabitants of Trégas ...

, in

Côtes-d'Armor The Côtes-d'Armor (, ; ; br, Aodoù-an-Arvor, ), formerly known as Côtes-du-Nord ( br, Aodoù-an-Hanternoz, link=no, ), are a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France. In 2019, it had a population of 600,582.

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...

History

Château is not technically accurate: the château is actually a big neo-medieval style :fr:manoir characteristic of the great summer houses of the late 19th century on the ''

côte de granit rose The Côte de granite rose or Pink Granite Coast is a stretch of coastline in the Côtes d'Armor departement of northern Brittany, France. It stretches for more than thirty kilometres from Plestin-les-Grèves to Louannec, encompassing Trégastel ...

'' (pink granite coast). The building, a voluminous complex resulting from several extensions, is made of pink

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

from the quarries of La Clarté,

Perros-Guirec Perros-Guirec (; br, Perroz-Gireg) is a commune in the department of Côtes-d'Armor in Brittany. It has been a seaside resort since the end of the 19th century. Geography Climate Perros-Guirec has a oceanic climate (Köppen climate classificatio ...

district. The roof is

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

. Its interior was designed with reclaimed wood from a three-masted sailing ship beached in the winter of 1896, the ''Maurice''. The manor was built on an islet bought at the end of the summer of

1892 Events January–March * January 1 – Ellis Island begins accommodating immigrants to the United States. * February 1 - The historic Enterprise Bar and Grill was established in Rico, Colorado. * February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for ...

Bruno Abakanowicz Bruno Abdank-Abakanowicz (6 October 1852 – 29 August 1900) was a Polish mathematician, inventor, and electrical engineer. Life Abakanowicz was born in 1852 in the Russian Empire (now Lithuania). After graduating from the Riga Technical Univ ...

(also called Bruno Abdank, who a little later - around 1896 - built the Bellevue hotel in Ploumanac'h), engineer and mathematician of Polish origin, from the customs officer René Le Brozec, a Perrosian who cultivated potatoes there and dried lichen and fish. The going rate at the time was per square metre. It was completed around

1896 Events January–March * January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers. * January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state. * January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wil ...

by the engineer Lanmoniez and the

Lannion Lannion ( ; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. It is a subprefecture of Côtes-d'Armor, the capital of Trégor and the center of an urban area of almost 60,000 inhabitants. Climate Lannion has a ...

nais entrepreneur Pierre Le Tensorer. After

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

, the date of Bruno's death, his daughter, Sofia Abakanowicz, who had become Madame Poray, had the manor extended by a wing to the west in return on the rear facade. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the manor was requisitioned by the German army, and suffered some interior damage. Following roofing work, on 6 September 1990 a fire partially destroyed the interior of the building. Images of this château on its islet are often used to illustrate postcards and tourist guides of the :fr:Côte de granit rose,

and

Geography

This castle took the name of the one-hectare islet on which it was built: ''Costaérès'' comes from ''coz-seherez'' (kozh-sec'herezh in modern Breton) which in

Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...

means "old drier". It was there, in fact, that fishermen used to dry their fish in the sun. The islet is located in the commune of Trégastel, facing the beaches of ''Tourony'' and '' Saint-Guirec'' (

Ploumanac'h Ploumanac'h ( or lumana and in Breton luˈmãːnax is a village port in a natural harbour, part of the commune of Perros-Guirec, in the arrondissement of Lannion, in the Côtes-d'Armor department of the Brittany region of France. In 2015 it w ...

), and separated from the latter by the channel of the port of Ploumanac'h formed by the Grand-Traouïero stream. It is accessible at low tide from Tourony beach. The islet is part of the

Natura 2000 Natura 2000 is a network of nature protection areas in the territory of the European Union. It is made up of Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas designated under the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, respectively ...

protected zone ''Côte de granit rose-Sept-Îles''

Personalities

Several personalities have stayed or lived in Costaérès: *

, mathematician, engineer, commissioner of the work. * :fr:Ladislas Mickiewicz, writer, eldest son of Polish poet

Adam Mickiewicz Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (; 24 December 179826 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Ro ...

. *

Henryk Sienkiewicz Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz ( , ; 5 May 1846 – 15 November 1916), also known by the pseudonym Litwos (), was a Polish writer, novelist, journalist and Nobel Prize laureate. He is best remembered for his historical novels, especi ...

who stayed there in 1898-1899, and while there wrote his novel '' Quo vadis ?''Jean Jacques Lévêque, Les années de la Belle Époque. 1890-1914 www.acr-edition.com, 1991
/ref> which earned him the 1905 Nobel Prize for Literature. A beach in Trégastel bears the name of ''Quo vadis''. *

Léo Ferré Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a French-born Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer, whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released s ...

, poet, musician. *

Dieter Hallervorden Dieter "Didi" Hallervorden (born 5 September 1935) is a German comedian, actor, singer, and cabaret artist. He achieved great popularity in German-speaking countries in the mid-1970s with the slapstick series Nonstop Nonsens and his character Did ...

, German comedian, is the current owner of the island.

Gallery

Image:Bretagne_Cote_granit_rose_05.jpg, The pink granite coast. Image:France_Cotes_d_Armor_Cote_de_granit_rose_14.jpg File:Château de Costaeres.JPG, The château. File:Château de Costaérès à Perros-Guirec.JPG

Notes and References

External Links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Costaeres, chateau Costaeres Châteaux in Côtes-d'Armor