The Manoir du Pont in Bailleau-Armenonville hosted the weekends of the Paradis Latin dancers

By purchasing the du Pont manor, avenue de la Gare in Bailleau-Armenonville, at the end of 2013, Patrick and Annie Mercier had no idea that they were going to acquire stones, but also a piece of history and anecdotes.
This 600 m2 building, set in the heart of a 1.8 hectare wooded park, has had several lives.

If the walls could talk, they would have things to say. Built in 1820, in its current form, the Pont manor has seen multiple owners.

house of rejoicing

Patrick Mercier has done research and he believes that even before this date “there was already a building in this place, but does not know more about its historical origin”. What the current owner and his wife, at the head of five guest rooms and suites, know best is the history of the manor, from 1963.

“A lot of people talked to us about it, our hairdresser, a former gardener on the property, neighbors,” says Patrick Mercier.
In the sixties, it was carefree.

In the middle of the yéyé period, an industrialist and developer named Jean Kriegel bought the building to make it his country house. Jean Kriegel, it was him who in 1973 bought a building located at 28 and 28 bis rue du Cardinal-Lemoine in Paris. He wants to build apartments there.

He will return to his initial project and relaunch the legendary Parisian cabaret Paradis Latin, the former Latin theater, launched in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte.

Sets and costumes

Jean Kriegel will rest from the hustle and bustle of Paris on weekends in his mansion in Bailleau-Armenonville. He stayed there until his death in 2004. “It was more than Jean Kriegel’s country house, it was that of Parisian show biz and the Paradis Latin,” says Patrick Mercier, the current owner.

Indeed, the inhabitants of Bailleau-Armenonville who lived through this era say that: “Johnny Hallyday arrived by helicopter in the grounds of the manor and Line Renaud who came to recharge his batteries there on numerous occasions,” reports the current owner, former manager of condominium trustee in the Paris region.

In the chapel-shaped workshop, set up in the park, Patrick Mercier found, during the purchase, “sets and costumes, like mermaid tails, which belonged to the Paradis Latin. Here it was a house of rejoicing for forty years. Jean Kriegel even chartered buses from Paris to bring the dancers and employees of the Paradis Latin to Bailleau-Armenonville. »

Sylvie Vartan, Eddy Mitchell et Dick Rivers

“There is a huge grill at the back of the park where you can cook a whole deer,” notes Annie Mercier. “It was Jean Kriegel who installed it. He wore his heart on his sleeve, he invited all the neighbors, the mansion was open all the time. » During the yéyé era, there were also Sylvie Vartan, Eddy Mitchell and Dick Rivers who came to the du Pont manor.

The owner of Paradis Latin has significantly transformed the manor and given it its current appearance. He added a neo-Gothic tower, mullioned windows, as well as sculptures and stained glass windows.