Château de Goutelas hosts meetings, study days, residential seminars, workshops and private events for groups of 20 to 160 people, with 27 double rooms and a 100-seat restaurant on site. The château stands at 277 route de Goutelas in Marcoux, on the edge of the Forez plain in the Loire department, between Lyon, Saint-Étienne and Clermont-Ferrand. It belongs to Loire Forez agglomération and is run as a cultural meeting center.
Seminars and company events
Business and institutional groups are the main event clients. Six rooms can be booked, from a 20 m² library for a small committee to the 160 m² Salle des Devises for a plenary session. All rooms share high-speed internet by Wi-Fi or wired fiber, screens and projectors, a videoconference system and sound equipment. Because meeting rooms, bedrooms and meals are on the same site, a two-day seminar can run without transfers. The spaces also take training courses, private workshops and private events, and layouts are set to each brief.
The château has announced a closure to the public from November 15, 2026, to March 15, 2027, for major renovation work. Organizers planning an event in that window should check availability first.
Rooms and capacities
The Salle des Devises is the largest room at 160 m², for 40 to 160 people. The Salle du Grand Juge covers 100 m² and takes 20 to 80. The Studio, 70 m², holds 20 to 60. Three smaller rooms suit committees and breakout groups: the Salon de musique, 35 m², for 8 to 25, and two libraries of 20 m² each, the Bibliothèque and the Ancienne bibliothèque, for 8 to 20. The website gives minimum and maximum figures only, without capacities per layout.
Accommodation
The château has 27 double rooms that sleep up to 50 people. More beds can be arranged on request for larger groups.
Catering
The château's own restaurant seats up to 100 and serves simple, traditional cooking built on Forez produce and regional know-how. Group meals are by reservation. From June to September, a food truck called La Caravane sets up on the terraces with local snacks, sharing boards, drinks and artisanal ice cream, which suits a summer break or an informal evening.
History and setting
Goutelas began as a fortified house in the thirteenth century. Around 1558 the jurist Jean Papon, Grand Juge du Forez, turned it into a Renaissance residence on an H-shaped plan, and the Salle du Grand Juge takes its name from him. The château is one of the settings of L'Astrée, the novel by Honoré d'Urfé. In the eighteenth century the Italian architect Michel-Ange Dal Gabbio added a pedimented façade and a grand staircase. Sold around 1860, it became a farm and fell into ruin. From 1961, the lawyer Paul Bouchet and the farmer Noël Durand led a rebuilding by farmers, workers and intellectuals, largely volunteers, over about ten years. Duke Ellington and Marcel Marceau are among the artists linked to its revival. It has held the Centre culturel de rencontre label from the Ministry of Culture since 2015.
Getting there
Marcoux is in the Monts du Forez foothills, roughly an hour by road from Lyon and less from Saint-Étienne. A car or a coach transfer is the practical option for groups.
