The Clicquot-Ponsardin Hôtel Particulier (private mansion) is situated in the heart of Reims, just two steps from the Place Royale. Built c.1780 by Jean-Nicolas-Philippe Ponsardin, textile industrialist and 18th Century French Baron, it is today the headquarters of the Rheims and Epernay Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The baron’s daughter Nicole married the founder of Champagne House Clicquot (who died, leaving her the Veuve Clicquot ...) . She inherited the mansion in 1820 and immediately gifted it to her son the Count de Chevigné. The property then passed to his daughter Marie-Clémentine, then his grand-daughter Marie-Adrienne, Duchess of Uzès.
In 1880, Marie-Adrienne ceded the property to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry that in turn rented out part of the building to the PTT (the French posts and telecommunications service). This handsome mansion then endured half a century of functional modifications at the hands of the PTT before recovering the beauty of its lines in 1933 thanks to works by Count Bertrand de Mun, then president of the Syndicat de Grandes Marques de Champagne, and also president of Champagne House Veuve Clicquot and the Chamber of Commerce. The cour d’honneur was at last disencumbered of its unwelcome alterations and restored to its former glory.
Built in stone by Courville, the form of the Ponsardin-Clicquot Hôtel Particulier is punctuated by blind balustrades formed by interlacing patterns and floral ornaments that set off the many windows. The slate roof features decorative oval dormers.
The entrance from the Rue Cérès opens onto a large vestibule that forms the stairwell of a monumental staircase, which is made with stone from the Ardre Valley. The staircase itself features a wrought-iron banister decorated with rosettes and lotus flowers.
