Seminars and company events
Château de la Baronnière is rented as a whole for meetings of up to 25 people and stays of up to 39 guests, over a weekend or a week. The listed château stands at La Chapelle-Saint-Florent, in the commune of Mauges-sur-Loire, in Anjou, and is still owned and run by descendants of the family that built it.
There is no dedicated seminar room. Meetings are held in the salon or the dining room, ideally for up to 25 people. The château has no projector, screen or wifi, though 4G coverage is available, so it suits a leadership retreat, a strategy workshop or a team stay where the group works on paper and laptops and values time away from the office. A billiard room, the pool and the park fill the breaks.
Weddings and receptions
Meals, evening parties and receptions can be held on the ground floor of the château or outdoors, with terms given on request. The site does not present a wedding package, so couples should ask the owners directly about capacity and conditions. The chapel is still used by the family for its own celebrations.
Rooms and capacities
The ground floor offers salons, dining rooms and a billiard room. The salon and the dining room are the two rooms named for meetings. Outdoors, the square courtyard, the chapel, the kitchen garden, an unheated swimming pool and the park give space for breaks and outdoor meals. The site gives no seated or standing capacity for receptions.
Accommodation
The château has 16 bedrooms, four of them dormitories, with 26 beds and extra beds on request, for up to 39 people. Three bedrooms have their own bathroom, and four further bathrooms are shared. A separate cottage sleeps four in two bedrooms with private bathrooms and a small kitchen, and a separate lodge sleeps seven. Cleaning before and after the stay and made beds are included, along with basics for the first breakfast.
Catering
The château does not run a restaurant and is not a bed and breakfast. A housekeeper can cook family-style meals on request. For a larger dinner or a reception, organizers should agree on a caterer with the owners.
History and setting
The estate belonged to the Bonchamps family from 1626. Its best-known member, the Vendée general Charles-Melchior-Arthus de Bonchamps, died in 1793 after the battle of Cholet, having spared 5,000 republican prisoners, and the Renaissance château was burned by republican troops that year. The Nantes shipowner Jean-Joseph Arnous Rivière bought the estate in 1801. His son Jules-Armand and his wife had the present château built from 1854 to 1856 by the Angers architect René Hodé, in the neo-Gothic troubadour style; it was classified as a historic monument in 1995. The chapel, built in 1842 on the tower of the old castle, has stained glass from 1846. The park, laid out from 1838 by the nurseryman André Leroy on the slope above the Èvre, covers about 20 hectares within a 30-hectare estate. The property belongs to Anne du Boucheron, a descendant of the Arnous Rivière family.
Getting there
The address is La Chapelle-Saint-Florent, 49410 Mauges-sur-Loire, in Maine-et-Loire. Groups usually arrive by car, and the owners can be reached by phone to plan arrival times.
