Château Laurens in Agde, a Dandy’s Dream Come True

The palatial residence dreamed up by a Languedoc aesthete is open to visitors, taking them on a fantastic journey through space and time from Pharaonic Egypt to the Gilded Age. The music room© David Maugendre Generations of Agde residents, in southern France, have contemplated this spectacular house on the banks of the Hérault opposite the old town, with its light volumes and terraced roofs, halfway between an Egyptian temple and a Greco-Roman mausoleum. Erected between 1898 and 1901, Château Laurens is named after the man who had it built, Emmanuel Laurens (1873-1959). Money was no object for the millionaire dandy, who