The Queen’s House, late Marie-Antoinette’s house, and Empress Marie-Louise’s got its charm of yesteryear back. This house set within the Queen’s Hamlet in the Petit Trianon park, needed an urgent renovation.

Thanks to the Dior patronage, the Queen’s House and the Réchauffoir (warming room) are now open for the apartment visit, starting from this May 12, 2018. The antiquated state of the place prevented any visit of the indoor. Of course, we can admire the outdoor renovation from now.

The program started in 2015 supported the works clean-up and a complete renovation with built-in structures, frameworks and coverings.

Floorings, woodworking and paintings have been taken over according to their precise layout determined in the 18^th century works, or according to the layout completed in the early 19^th century for Empress Marie-Louise, Marie-Antoinette’s grand-niece.

It’s not only the Queen’s House that has been renovated. The Réchauffoir, the adjacent building that used to house the kitchens and the service pieces has found a new breath of life too.

What makes the beauty of this exceptional jewel is the gardens. The surroundings have been reestablished following pictures from 1930. They mix the started layouts for Marie-Louise’s settling and some memories of the layout conceived for Marie-Antoinette (the famous spiral staircase, the kitchen gardens…).

What shocks us when we arrive at the Queen’s Hamlet is the contrast between the castle’s splendor. We discover a true bucolic village. The hamlet covers three distinctive zones delimited by Richard Mique. The first, set at the south of the stones bridge spanning the river, has houses for leisure: the mill (which wheel is a simple piece of décor), the boudoir, the Queen’s House, the pool table and the warm room.

Beyond the bridge, houses are more devoted to farming: barn, dairy farm for preparation, dairy farm of cleanliness, fishery and caretaker’s house. The tower that looks upon the lake is named the “Marlborough tower” because of the popular song at the time of the construction.

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You need to know that Marie-Antoinette used to want to show agronomy, farming and breeding to children. Here, we find the kitchen garden at the back of the house. In the Trianon park, Marie-Antoinette created the first English garden, a bucolic garden that stands out against the palace’s gardens and extended with the creation of the Hamlet.

The rooms of the Queen’s house have been redecorated and refurbished as well. In the house, we find the taste of a woman and the colors of a summer house. Unlike the outside, the layout is all about luxury and created with an astonishing contrast. Of course, there’s nothing left from Marie-Antoinette’s furniture since they have been spread out during the French Revolution. The furniture filling the house have been mostly ordered by Napoleon for Marie-Louise in 1810. Bright yellow and deep green create the décor of this renovated house.

How about seeing what the place looked like before the renovation? Well, there’s a lovely exhibition awaiting you within the Petit Trianon. Form May 4 to September 2, 2018, Claire Adelfang reveals the pictures taken before the renovation.

In other words, if you fancy a super bucolic walk and discover another aspect of Versailles and Marie-Antoinette’s former house, here’s the visit worth the trip.