Domaine de Pescheray hosts meetings, study days, seminars, general assemblies, business meals and family receptions, with four meeting rooms and a restaurant that takes up to 200 guests at a cocktail. The estate covers about 145 hectares of woodland in Le Breil-sur-Mérize, in the Sarthe, about 20 km east of Le Mans. It combines a zoo, a restaurant and a historic château, and is run by an ESAT, a French work-integration enterprise that employs people with disabilities.
Seminars and company events
For seminars, the estate provides four fully equipped meeting rooms with flip charts, a video projector, screens, internet access and sound. Equipment can be adjusted on request. The formats listed for companies are meetings, full or half study days, seminars, general assemblies and business meals, often combined with a visit of the zoological park or a walk around the château grounds.
The estate also offers activities to round off a day: a visit of the zoo, a medieval-themed entertainment during the meal, horse rides, dancing and indoor games, with karting and a swimming pool nearby. Works councils can book the zoo at group rates with optional activities, and the team receives company groups for a shared visit tailored to the aims of the day.
Weddings and receptions
The estate hosts weddings, christenings, birthdays, children's parties and welcome drinks. Family groups use the restaurant rooms, and the zoo and the grounds give children and older guests something to do between courses. Seated capacity for a wedding dinner is not published.
Rooms and capacities
Alongside the four meeting rooms, the restaurant, La Quintefeuille, has two dining rooms: a large room of 105 square meters and a second room of 56 square meters. Together they take up to 200 people in a cocktail layout. The capacities of the individual meeting rooms are not published. Free private parking is on site.
Catering
La Quintefeuille is run on the estate and serves traditional cooking with balanced, varied menus, in partnership with local producers. It is open every day at lunchtime for most of the year, with weekday service only in winter, and handles group events on quotation. Menus for companies and families are built on request. During the zoo season, a snack bar called L'Escale Gourmande serves visitors on weekends and holidays in spring and every day in July and August.
History and setting
The estate began as a seigneurial domain. Its website dates the first stones to 841, and the buildings that stand today were raised and altered from the 16th to the 19th century. Around the château are a gatehouse and a monumental dovecote from the 16th century, a very large barn, a former orangery, a neo-Gothic chapel and a 19th-century garden folly. Since 1967 the estate has belonged to the Secours Catholique, following a donation, and it now houses a social complex created in 1968 with an ESAT and residential services. Around 74 workers with disabilities work in green-space maintenance, firewood, catering, animal care and other services. The zoo opens from mid-February to early November.
Getting there
The estate lies about 20 km east of Le Mans, which the restaurant describes as 15 minutes away. From Le Mans, follow the D357 toward Orléans, Blois and Saint-Calais. Le Mans has a high-speed train station.
