Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine 55000

Manor house in Bar-le-Duc. The property is accessed behind a gate that creates, from the street, a discreet entrance to a spacious garden of a little under 4000 m2, walled and wooded. Built in 1886 for Frédéric Dyckhoff by his father-in-law, the architect Charles Demoget, the manor rises set back, in the middle of the garden. Rising over three levels on cellars under a slate roof, the manor features façades in Savonnières stone. The main façade is animated by a particularly rich sculpted decoration. The tall mullioned windows with small panes are framed by mouldings and topped with openwork friezes of tendrils and vegetal motifs. Under one of them, a sculpted register combines a cogwheel, pliers and a hammer, surrounded by foliage and volutes, with a frieze of small floral motifs, evoking the industrial world. The entrance, preceded by a stone staircase, is protected by a long metal marquee that runs along the entire façade, today heavily deteriorated and partially glazed. The double-leaf door, adorned with ironwork, is surmounted by a decorative transom. The plinth retains a wooden service door. On the left, the façade still bears traces in the masonry of a disappeared continuous balcony. Adjoined to the main elevation, a stair turret is topped with a steeply pitched slate roof, whose upper part is distinguished by curved bays fitted with stained glass. The openings, carefully framed by worked stone, are accompanied by cornices and friezes that rhythm the different levels. The garden provides a true private space and hosts a particularly generous vegetation today, including a ginkgo biloba, a purple beech, a linden and a walnut. An emblematic property for both its architecture and its significance in the local industrial history, it embodies the success of the Dyckhoff family, a major figure in the region's history. It is in Bar-le-Duc that Rudolf Diesel and Frédéric Dyckhoff, an engineer and industrialist close to Gustave Eiffel, designed the very first functional diesel engine in July 1894.