In 1940 a countess turned her family’s country house into a hiding place. Musicians lived here while the occupation lasted, and some of them were on lists they were not meant to survive.
At a glance
The Château Pastré is a nineteenth-century Provençal bastide in the southern districts of Marseille, below the Calanques, in the park the city calls the Campagne Pastré. It was finished in 1862 and held the city’s faience museum from 1995 to 2013. Since the collection moved to the Château Borély, the house has been closed to the public: the park around it is open, the building is not, which makes the days when it does open worth the trip.
Key facts
- What it is: a bastide of 1862, formerly the musée de la Faïence, now closed to visitors
- Architect: Jean-Charles Danjoy, of Paris, for Eugène Pastré (1806–1868) and Céline de Beaulincourt-Marle
- During the war: a refuge run by Countess Lily Pastré (1891–1974) for artists and for Jews trying to leave France
- Museum years: May 1995 to 2013, more than 1,500 pieces of faience covering seven thousand years
- Where: 157 avenue de Montredon, 13008 Marseille, in the Campagne Pastré
- Now: the park is public; the house opens only for special occasions
History
Eugène Pastré and his wife Céline commissioned the house from the Parisian architect Jean-Charles Danjoy, and it was finished in 1862 — a bastide on the Marseille model, the country seat of a shipping family, set in grounds that ran down towards the sea.
Its importance is not architectural. During the Second World War the countess Lily Pastré, born Double de Saint-Lambert, made the house a refuge for artists, and sheltered here a number of Jews trying to get out of France — among them the harpist Lily Laskine (1893–1988) and the pianists Youra Guller (1895–1980) and Clara Haskil (1895–1960). Haskil was operated on there for a brain tumour, by a surgeon the countess brought down from Paris.
The house and its grounds were given to the city after the war. From May 1995 the château held the musée de la Faïence, with more than 1,500 pieces; in 2013 the collection went to the Château Borély, into the new museum of decorative arts, faience and fashion, and the building closed. In 2021 an association proposed reopening it as a centre for artists; the matter is with the city.
What you see
Stone and pink brick, a rectangular block of two storeys under an attic floor, with a projecting centre. The window surrounds and the cornice are picked out in pale stone against the brick, and the whole thing sits square to a gravel terrace with palms. It reads as what it was: a family’s summer house, built large.
Practical information
- The park of the Campagne Pastré is open and much used by the people of Marseille.
- The house itself has been closed to the public since 2013; openings are occasional, for the European Heritage Days and similar occasions.
- Check the organiser’s dates before travelling; entry is not guaranteed outside those days.
Getting there
The estate lies on the avenue de Montredon, in the eighth arrondissement, on the coast road that runs south towards the Calanques. City buses serve Montredon from the Vieux-Port.
Nearby
- The Calanques National Park, which begins immediately to the south.
- The Château Borély, where the faience collection is now shown.
- The Corniche and the fishing village of Les Goudes, further along the coast.
Sources
- French Wikipedia, Lily Pastré — the artists she protected at the château under the occupation, and the brain-tumour operation performed on Clara Haskil by a surgeon brought from Paris.
- French Wikipedia, Château Pastré — the 1862 completion and Danjoy’s authorship, the Pastré commission, Lily Pastré’s wartime refuge and the names of those she sheltered, the gift to the city, the museum years 1995–2013 and the closure, and the description of the building.
- Wikidata (Q169369) and OpenStreetMap — coordinates.
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →Events here — now on & upcoming
- Château Pastré opens for the European Heritage Days — Marseille19 Sep 2026 — 20 Sep 2026See the event →
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