Château de Parentignat can be hired privately for seminars, general meetings, product launches and receptions, from 15 to 400 guests. Seminars take up to 250 people in the decorated state rooms, and the Grand Pavillon seats 200 for dinner or holds 400 for a cocktail. The 18th-century château stands in Parentignat, near Issoire, in Auvergne, 35 minutes from Clermont-Ferrand.
Seminars and company events
Companies can book the château for seminars, work days, product launches and annual general meetings. Meetings take place in the most richly decorated rooms of the house, hung with paintings by French masters of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a capacity of 250 in several layouts. All rooms have central heating, so the house works in every season, and Wi-Fi covers the whole château. A projector, a screen and a sound system are available on request. The château team also handles the logistics, including catering and the hire of tables and chairs, and the estate offers team-building activities in Auvergne.
Weddings and receptions
Receptions can be held indoors or outdoors. The Grand Pavillon and the Orangerie each take 200 guests seated for dinner, and the Grand Pavillon holds 400 for a cocktail or 250 in a show layout. The terrace suits a drinks reception, with a view over the park and over the hill of Usson, where Queen Margot once lived. The salons of the main house take 80 seated or 100 standing each, for a smaller dinner. The site does not describe a wedding package, so ask the team what applies to a wedding.
The château is also used as a film location. A main scene of La Nouvelle Guerre des Boutons, released in September 2011, was shot in its large dining room, and the TV film La Clinique du Docteur Blanche was filmed entirely here in 2013.
Rooms and capacities
The Grand Pavillon takes 200 seated, 250 in a show layout or 400 standing. The Orangerie takes 200 seated. The large dining room with the suite of salons, the Salon Louis XV and the Salon Palatine each take 80 seated or 100 standing. The terrace is used for cocktails. Altogether the château gives a range of 15 to 400 guests.
Catering
The château arranges catering as part of the event logistics, together with tables and chairs. Ask the team which caterers it works with and what menus they propose.
History and setting
In 1707 Jean-Antoine de Lastic bought the seigneury of Parentignat for his nephew François II de Lastic. Between 1710 and 1720 François II spent more than 100,000 livres buying up more than 170 surrounding houses to clear the site and building the château, and laid out a formal French garden. From 1780 Anne-François IV de Lastic, a lieutenant general of the king's armies, gave the château its present look, completing the central block and the mansard roofs and building the main staircase in marble from his own quarry. The house was spared during the Revolution. In 1802 Louise Hyacinthe de Montesquiou Fézensac created the English-style park. A fire in 1822 destroyed the attic floor and much of the stored original furniture.
The writer Henri Pourrat called Parentignat the little Versailles of Auvergne. The house keeps one of the largest private collections of French paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries, much of its original furniture in the state bedrooms, and a library of 20,000 bound volumes. It also opens to visitors and hosts concerts, theater and exhibitions.
Getting there
The address is 7 place du Château, 63490 Parentignat, near Issoire. Clermont-Ferrand is 35 minutes away by road, and Lyon about two hours by motorway.
