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| front of the house and wall along the garden in 2021 as on Google Streetview |
The house pictured above is located in Chaillevette. a commune with some 1600 inhabitants in south-west France, situated on the left bank of the Seudre river in an area with many salt marshes, where oysters are cultivated and traded via the local, picturesque harbour along the Seudre river.
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| at the right: Château de Beauregard this photo (2024) and the next three (2025) \ published here in agremeent with Georges Fontaine |
Life and works
The front of the house is provided with a modestly sized art environment, predominantly presenting miniature castles, created by Guy Chalvignac.
Born in 1929 or 1930 in the French area Périgord, Guy Chalvignac settled in the Charente-Maritime department in the early 1950s, first in the Royan area and then in Chaillevette.
He married and had descendants, was a plasterer by trade and retired in 1988.
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As a child, Chalvignac was already active in doing odd jobs and making all kinds of things.
For example, at a young age he made all kinds of windmills and he also put together a truck, which he could pull with a rope.
He also enjoyed painting, an activity he would pursue throughout his life, also when he was creating the art environment in the front yard.
That yard has a concrete wall on the right side (seen from the street), which is still unpainted on Google Streetview in March 2021, but in the video below, made in 2024, is provided with colorfully painted scenes
From the images of the front garden on Google Streetview, it appears also that the decoration of the front garden with miniature castles must have started after 2013.
This means that Calvignac undertook creatng the ccllection of miniature castles at a later age, when he was already in his eighties.
Working with concrete, he decorated the front garden of his house mainly with replicas in miniature of a variety of French castles. He was a meticulous worker who strove to reproduce architecture of the castles as faithfully as possible
His first project was a replica of the Château de Hautefort, located in the Dordogne.
Another miniature depicts a castle that, located near where Chalvignac lived was called the Château de Beauregard and is shown on the far right in the second image from the top.
It was known as the “castle with the six towers” and dominated all the buildings in the area. Legend has it that it was once a refuge for pirates who attacked ships, but the castle is now destroyed.
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| not identified |
Other miniatures of castles created by Chalvignac are the Château de Milandes, the Château de Commarque, both located in the Dordogne, and the Château de Val in de Haute Corrèze.
In the interior of Chalvignac's house there are also creations he made, in particular a collection of about fifteen models of sailing ships, such as Le Protecteur with 500 pulleys and 64 guns, a ship of the French Navy, designed in 1740 to face the English Navy.
Documentation
* Entry (2022) on the website of Patrimoine et Inventaire de Nouvelle-Aquitaine
* Article (May 2025) in regional newspaper Le Littoral (10% of the text, the full text is copied on Facebook)
Video
* Reel (December 2024) by Karine Bellet, granddaughter of Guy Chalvignac, on Facebook
Guy Chalvignac
Garden decorated with miniature castles
9 rue de la Mairie
17890 Chaillevette, dept Charente-Maritime, region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
can be seen from the street
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