that Château de Sibra is located near Carcassonne at the foot of the French Pyrenees in the middle of an extensive landscape park. As the new owner, Swiss architect Sibylle Thomke, told me, it was this park that first touched and inspired her.
The 15-hectare park was created around 1880 as an English-style landscape park and houses a collection of various exotic trees, romantic buildings, artificial grottoes and ruins, as well as a pond in which the castle is reflected. There are different perspectives and color changes over the course of the seasons. A walk through the park always offers new views and impressions and invites you to linger and reflect. This variety of sensory impressions finally encouraged Ms. Thomke to buy the park and castle.
She then researched the history of the place. It dates back at least to the 13th century, when the site was part of the Camon monastery. In 1597, the estate was sold to the family of Louis de Saint-George. Impoverished by events during the French Revolution, the family sold the property to Pierre Espert, Marshal of the Empire. This laid the foundation stone for the current castle building. However, the castle was given its current shape from 1878 by the following owner: Joseph Villary. He was a successful businessman who had received the concession for a railroad line five years earlier. He was called Villary de Fajac, the railroad baron.
As she told me, Mrs. Thomke “became friends” with the castle and its outbuildings when she became aware of the unity of park and castle, because the imaginative and romantic spirit of Villary de Fajac can also be felt in the castle itself. From 1878, he commissioned a Toulouse architect to completely redesign the old fortress. Inspiration was drawn from various architectural styles. The main building had four different medieval towers and window frames with Renaissance-style busts.
There is also playful pomp inside. Painted tapestries in the dining room depict hunting scenes depicting the owners in Renaissance costumes on horseback. Painted glass windows, terracotta fireplaces, terrazzo floors and stoneware and cement tiles were commissioned from well-known companies.
During the renovation, Mrs. Thomke took on the challenge of maintaining something worth protecting without being a museum. For the second-floor salon, the Cologne-based company Mosáico cement tiles manufactured faithful replicas of the historic floor tiles in their own factory in Marrakesh. A detailed report on the”Top class” of cement tile manufacturing For this project, see my previous post. The original wallpaper pattern was reprinted on a historic printing press in Sweden. Mrs. Thomke has adopted the spirit of Villary de Fajac and added another style with modern furniture and contemporary art. This has created an area of tension between traditional heritage and contemporary design.
Today stands for Guests in the castle five individually furnished, spacious rooms with private bathrooms available; there are three apartments and an entire house to rent in the surrounding farm buildings. There are also equipped kitchens, workshop rooms and various other common areas such as a salon and a library. The castle and its park are so spacious that each guest has an area of 5000 m2 has available.
Ms. Thomke has made Château de Sibra a place where guests are inspired to create creative projects in an exceptional setting of breathtakingly beautiful nature and the highest level of comfort: to paint, write, compose, meet, ponder, meditate, be there.
As in the days of Villary de Fajac, Château de Sibra is constantly evolving. The (new) opening ceremony took place on June 18, 2021, and the following chapters of his story will be presented by Mrs. Thomke and her guests. We at Mosáico would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in us and are proud to have played our part in reviving Sibra's fairytale ambiance.
All photos are from Stöh Grünig Photography & Film and were thankfully made available by Mrs. Thomke.