File:Lourmarin - Chateau de Lourmarin (5825394043).jpg

This is the village of Lourmarin in The Luberon (one of France's National Parks).

The village of Lourmarin is set in magnificent surroundings and radiates peace and serenity. It has spread on the lush plain around a small promontory at the top of which are a church and belfry. Everything works towards its beauty. The village is best seen from the road to Lauris: the castle emerging from dense vegetation, the Protestant temple, and finally the village itself, rising up on terraces to meet the church tower, with the added grace of Mediterranean vegetation.

This castle is the <a href="http://www.chateau-de-lourmarin.com/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Chateau de Lourmarin</a>.

The castle has been classified a historical monument in 1973

The body's oldest castle was built in the fifteenth century by Coots Agoult on the ruins of a fortress from the twelfth century. From 1526, Louis-Agoult Montauban and his wife, Blanche de Lévis-Ventadour, did raise the Renaissance wing of a remarkable unity of style. At the end of the sixteenth century, the building became the property of Crequi-Lesdiguieres, residing at Chateau La Tour d'Aigues. From then and until 1789, the castle is occupied by the stewards who manage the land. After the French Revolution, during which he escapes the destruction, the Castle passed into the hands of various owners, who may not have the means to maintain it. The Chateau-Vieux is falling apart, the wing converted barn Renaissance, and also serves as home for vagrants and gypsies crossing.

In 1920, the castle would be sold to a contractor and doomed to destruction for the recovery of stones when he was providentially discovered and acquired by Robert Laurent-Vibert, industrial Lyons, owner of Hahn Oil, but also a great scholar, Normale professor of history and member of the French School in Rome.

Seduced by the beautiful remnants of the house he began to restore it, which he did from 1921 to 1923 based on old documents provided by his friend Edward Aude, curator of the library Méjanes Aix-en-Provence . All the artisans were employed in this restoration lourmarinois.

Robert Laurent Vibert disappeared in 1925 in a car accident. By a will made in 1923, he bequeathed the castle to the Academy of Science, Agriculture, Arts et Belles Lettres of Aix-en-Provence, dependent for her to establish a Foundation.

Thus was created the F oundation Lourmarin Robert Laurent-Vibert , state-approved in 1927, managed by a Board composed initially of friends of Robert Laurent Vibert.