Short history of Château du Châtelard
Château du Châtelard has a very long history that goes back more than a thousand years. It stands above Clarens, surrounded by vineyards and looking out over Lake Geneva.
The first “Châtelard” was built around the year 1000 by the Burgundians. It was a wooden structure, and today almost nothing remains of it. In 1295, the land was bought by Girard d’Oron from the bishop of Sion. A few years later, part of it was sold to the Count of Savoy, while the area of Châtelard remained separate from Montreux for the next 600 years.
In 1352, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy asked for a new stone castle to be built as a refuge in case of invasion. The work began in 1440 and was completed in 1442 by Jean de Gingins, who was married to Marguerite de La Sarraz. The Gingins family owned the castle for many years.
In 1476, during the Burgundian Wars, the castle was partly burned and looted by troops from Gruyère. After that, the property changed owners several times, including the city of Vevey and later the Bondeli family from Bern, who kept it until the Vaud Revolution in 1798.
Around 1770, the castle’s great hall was decorated with painted landscapes by the Swiss artist Gottfried Locher. Much later, in 1961, the communes of Châtelard and Les Planches were reunited to form modern Montreux. The château was bought by the Fornerod family in 1983, and then by a Geneva investment group in 2015.
Today, Château du Châtelard is listed as a Swiss cultural heritage site of national importance. It sits in the middle of a 29,000 m² vineyard that produces a Grand Cru Pinot Noir (Lavaux AOC).
