Le Jardin des Lys

The house from the 19th century

Maison de Maître in the 19th century

The house "Le Jardin des Lys"

The golden age of manor houses in France stretched from 1850 to 1880. These houses are often recognizable by their rectangular floor plans and large, exposed corner stones. In many cases, the main façade has five windows in line with the door and the windows on the lower level. The entrance door, which is usually centrally located, can be reached via a short flight of steps. The entire property is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence standing on a stone wall. A striking gate marks the entrance to the property.

Manor houses have large reception rooms on the first floor and adjoining bedrooms on the upper floor. High ceilings of at least 3.5 meters, marble or stone fireplaces in the main rooms and bedrooms and a magnificent internal staircase are further characteristics of a manor house. The house may be located in or on the edge of a park, as is the case with the house "Le Jardin de Lys", where the old trees are still a reminder of the former park.

The house "Le Jardin des Lys" was built towards the end of the 19th century on the site of two farms in the former "Rue du Montjus" (today: "Rue de la Fontaine"). It was known in the village as "the new castle" and belonged to the family of Antoine Juvénal Christophe Christ and Anne Pétronille Annonciate Grandmessin, who lived there together with two employees.

Mr Christ was a notary and "propriétaire". As a notary, Mr Christ had a prestigious profession and a high income. In conjunction with his status as "propriétaire", he was able to build a property that reflected not only his bourgeois wealth but also his social standing in the village. He built a "Maison de Maître" with a park and the necessary farm buildings.

From manor house to small hotel

After the Christ family, the house passed into Swiss hands. Mrs. Maralyn Claudia Hudson, also known as Mrs. Schmidt, lived in the house until 1993. The company "Inter Invest Generalunternehmungen" then became the owner. From 2005, the house was back in French hands and served as a small hotel called "Le Jardin des Lys" until the end of 2022.

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Founding family

Antoine Juvenal Christophe Christ was born in Poussay on 9 June 1819, the son of a respected chevalier. Among other things, he was a notary in a law firm in Saint-Remimont, around 12 kilometres from Gemmelaincourt. On 5 June 1850 in Gemmelaincourt, he married Anne Pétronille Annonciate Grandmessin from Gemmelaincourt, who was around 10 years his junior. Mr Christ died at the age of 70 on 8 May 1890 in Gemmelaincourt and was buried in the ‘Christ-Grandmessin’ family grave in Gemmelaincourt cemetery.

Anne Pétronille Annonciate Grandmessin was born in Gemmelaincourt on 18 January 1830. She was the daughter of Dominique Grandmessin from Gemmelaincourt and Françoise Catherine Pétronille Leroux from Saint-Menge. One year after her marriage to Antoine Juvenal Christophe Christ in 1850, she gave birth to a son, who died the same year. Five years later, on 20 February 1856, her daughter Marie Alice Christ was born. Mrs Grandmessin died early in the morning on 19 July 1913 at the age of 83 in Gemmelaincourt and was laid to rest in the family grave.

Marie Alice Christ married the much-titled Félix Eugène Gebhart in Nancy on 29 May 1876. The couple presumably moved to Nice. When her husband died in Lausanne (Switzerland) on 18 August 1903 at the age of just 57, she returned to Gemmelaincourt to live with her mother. After her mother's death in 1913, she took over the Maison de Maître. Marie Alice Christ remained childless until her death.

The photorealistic scene above shows a reconstruction of Mrs Anne Pétronille Annonciate Grandmessin (widow Christ) with her daughter Marie Alice Gebhart (formerly Christ) on a village street around 1900. The scene was generated with the help of artificial intelligence (chat.openai.com and gemini.google.com).

‘Couple de Concierges’

Due to their size, large properties such as ‘Le Nouveau Château’ in Gemmelaincourt could not be managed by the owners alone. Tasks such as cleaning, courier service, cooking, heating, coordinating service providers and garden maintenance were therefore assigned to so-called ‘Couple de Concierges’ - married couples who lived in the house themselves and were available around the clock to do the housework.

With the end of the Second World War, the traditional model of the ‘Couple de Concierges’ gradually began to disappear. The employees‘ growing demand for more privacy and the homeowners’ desire for cheaper and more professional services ultimately led to the demise of this model - including at ‘Le Nouveau Château’ in Gemmelaincourt.

Before the First World War, for example, the following couple worked for the Christ-Grandmessin family:

Georges François Roux (*1867)
Marie Louise Bernhard (*1862)
Eugène Latraye (*1864)
Thérèse Harmand (*1874)

Before Anne Grandmessin's death, two nuns, Marie-Thérèse Wendelmeyer and Louise Didier, were also accommodated in the house to care for the old lady.

After the First World War, the couple Paul Louis Goudot (*1882) and Marie Louise Antenat (*1885) took over the care of the property until 1936. They had a daughter together, Marie Therese Jeannette Goudot, who was born in 1910 and died in Epinal in 1994.