House opens after 100 years

Maison Mantin. A house in a nearby town. A beautiful house. A lovely house. But what makes this house so special? 

The last owner left the house to the city when he passed away. Under one condition: it had to stay closed for a century and then be opened to the public.

The owner, Monsieur Louis Mantin, passed away in 1905... Meaning that this house is now open for the public!
It opened a couple of years later than Monsieur Mantin would have wanted, but he forgot about one small detail when a house is hermetically shut for a century: decay. It took almost 4 million dollars to get it back into shape...

Monsieur Mantin obviously was loaded. His house was the first to have electricity, had some sort of central heating system and has sterling silver window-closures, just to name a view extravaganzas. Ohw. And of course there is the room with the leather on the walls that has been painted with gold and silver. Real gold and silver. This room is  one of the two leather covered rooms that remained in entire France! Very unique.


The lightbulbs are still the ones that were in there when Louis walked around the house, the papers are still on his desk. The renovators did an amazing job on giving the public the impression to have gone back in time. Fabulous!








Up until a couple of decades ago, these lightbulbs were still produced. Now they're no longer made. So if these lightbulbs break down, they cannot be replaced.











The bathroom has all sorts of nifty features. So there was floor heating and in the middle of the picture you can see a small cabinet? That was were the towels were placed. It was connected to the central heating system, so dear Louis always had warm towels!






The large lamp contains three lights inside the crown: red, white, blue. Protest. Rebellion. But stylish. :)



And let's not forget the impressive Boudoir...



So if you're around Moulins in the Allier départment (région Auvergne), don't forget to go and visit. And if you're as wealthy as Louis was, please, consider closing your house, with all the content in it, and handing the keys to the Mayor as a serious option.

I travelled through time.

Sacha.

There's a wiki-page on 'Maison Mantin'


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