Hôtel du gouverneur militaire (military governor’s mansion)

A Regency-style Strasbourg mansion

The mansion was built from 1754 to 1755 by the Gayot brothers, in a prime location between rue Brûlée (where its entrance is) and place Broglie (where its gardens can be seen). One of the brothers was assistant to the senior commissariat officer of Alsace, commissar of war and finally Royal moneylender, while the other was administrator of army provisions. The mansion was one of the last to have been built under the Ancien Régime, and its stripped-down Regency architecture was a precursor of the return to an older style.

The building features a monumental entrance court, surrounded by columns, in the Tuscan style, a huge internal staircase and a ceremonial entrance. A vast gallery, supported by columns, features a ceiling decorated with frescoes by Alsatian artist Joseph Melling, probably painted between 1780 and 1785, and which depict the gods of Olympus.

The residence of the Ministry of Defence in Strasbourg

The Gayot mansion, as it was then called, was sold in 1771 to Paletine Prince Maximilian Joseph, Duke of of Zweibrücken, colonel of his own Alsace regiment, seigneur of Ribeauvillé and future King of Bavaria, only for it to be confiscated during the French Revolution. The mansion was then allocated to the commander of the French military region and subsequently to his German counterpart (during the annexation), only to come back into French hands a few decades later. It is currently the HQ of the military governor.

The ground-floor suites, with their windows giving out onto the garden and onto place Broglie, are laid out and furnished in the Regency and Empire styles. The French Ministry of defence stays here when he comes to Strasbourg.