Château de Canon hosts seminars, general meetings, trainings, conventions, company parties, team-building days and weddings, for groups of 10 to 300 people. Three event spaces, from a 30 square meter apartment to a 230 square meter hall, sit in the outbuildings of an 18th-century château surrounded by listed gardens. The family estate lies at 10 avenue du Château de Canon in Mézidon-Canon, in the Pays d'Auge, Calvados, about 30 minutes from Caen and Lisieux.
Seminars and company events
The estate has welcomed companies for more than 15 years, with a coordinator who plans each event and a list of approved suppliers. The Salle des Rosières is the main room. It suits evening events, meetings, trainings, general meetings and team-building, with a projector, a screen and a paperboard.
The estate sells themed days built around the place. The garden day combines a morning meeting with a local organic lunch and either a flower-picking and bouquet workshop at the flower farm or a yoga session in the English park. The heritage day adds a 45-minute private tour of the château led by one of the owners. The challenge day ends with a murder party inside the château, with a cocktail or food truck lunch.
Weddings and receptions
The estate has hosted weddings for nearly 20 years. Ceremonies can take place at the Greek temple, the recently restored Chinese kiosk, on the lawn between the château and the water mirror, or in the vegetable garden; all have power for sound and lighting. The cocktail runs between the château and the water mirror, facing one of the long vistas of the Pays d'Auge, or in the outbuildings between the orangery and the cider press when the weather turns. Flowers can come from the estate's own flower farm, and the gardens can be lit for an evening wedding.
Rooms and capacities
The Salle des Rosières covers 230 square meters and takes 30 to 300 guests for a dinner, a banquet or a theatre layout. It has a catering office, Wi-Fi, five restrooms and a cloakroom, with 250 Napoleon III chairs and 20 round tables.
The Orangerie covers 70 square meters plus the adjoining cider press and takes 20 to 140 guests for cocktails, coffee breaks, after-work events or buffet lunches. Its courtyard opens onto a terrace, and the bar can be set up in the press.
The Logis d'Antoinette, 30 square meters, takes 5 to 20 people for a meeting, workshop or classroom session, with a kitchenette, Wi-Fi, projector and screen.
Accommodation
Two houses sleep up to 12. The Logis d'Antoinette, an apartment in the main courtyard facing the château, has one bedroom for two to four people. The Maison des Tilleuls, next to the park, has three bedrooms for four to eight, a large living room and a walled garden. The team supplies a list of other lodgings nearby.
Catering
There is no in-house restaurant. Lunches are provided by partner caterers or food trucks, and the Salle des Rosières has a catering office for them.
History and setting
The château is a listed historic monument. In 1768 Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont, a lawyer and friend of Voltaire, won back the estate after a four-year lawsuit and enlarged it, doubling the outbuildings, raising the château and laying out a park with follies, canals and cascades in the English style he had admired on his travels with Horace Walpole. His descendants kept the layout intact, and the 15-hectare park is now labeled a Jardin Remarquable.
Getting there
Mézidon station, on the Paris to Cherbourg line, is 2.2 km away, about 15 minutes on foot; Paris is 2 hours 30 by train with a change at Lisieux. The A13 is 15 minutes away, the coast 25 minutes, Caen-Carpiquet airport 35 minutes and Deauville airport 40 minutes.
