Château de la Calade, Historic castle in Aix-en-Provence, France

The Château de la Calade is a two-storey château at Puyricard, near Aix-en-Provence, built from 1632 for Jérôme de Duranti. Its pale stone facade has a round-arched doorway with a carved pediment, three shuttered windows above and a gravel courtyard with flower beds. Two round towers with dark tiled roofs flank it; two of the original four were demolished during the French Revolution.

Built from 1632 for Jérôme de Duranti, a counselor at the Provence court of accounts, the château was given a deliberately archaic style closer to the 16th century than the 17th. It originally had four towers, two of which were demolished during the French Revolution. The building was listed as a monument historique in 2011 and classified in 2015.

The grand staircase displays ornamental plasterwork with pastoral scenes and family heraldry that reflect the wealth of its inhabitants. These decorations tell the story of the family's roots and social standing.

The château is a private property at 1330, chemin du Château-de-la-Calade, near Puyricard and the Touloubre, and it is not open to visitors. The building and the surviving parts of its historic park were listed as monuments historiques in May 2011, and the château itself was classified in January 2015. The gravel courtyard and the two round towers with tiled roofs can be seen from the approach road.

The first-floor salon holds a panoramic wallpaper known as 'les jardins de Bagatelle' or 'jardins anglais', described in the French sources as the first example of panoramic wallpaper in France. The large first-floor bedroom instead has a trompe-l'œil of draperies.