Hôtel du Poët, hôtel particulier in Aix-en-Provence, France

Hôtel du Poët is a private mansion located on Place Forbin in the center of Aix-en-Provence and officially protected as a historic monument. The building features three floors with Provençal Baroque styling, including arched doorways, decorative pilasters, and detailed iron balcony railwork from the 18th century.

Henri Gautier, a notary clerk enriched as Treasurer of the Estates of Provence and ennobled in 1724, bought land at the top of the Cours Mirabeau in 1730 and commissioned architect Georges Vallon to build the Hôtel du Poët on the site of an old watermill. From 1777 the Penet and Sure bookshop occupied part of the building, and the commercial court sat on the first floor until 1834. It was listed as a monument historique on 3 November 1987.

The ground floor has housed shops since the 18th century: an apothecary, a reading cabinet, and the printer Rémondet, publisher of the local paper Le Mémorial d'Aix. Later came a carriage renter, a taxi office, a dyer and, after 1945, the newspaper La Provence Libérée. Above the right-hand shopfronts today, signs read "LA PROVENCE" and "Immobilier".

The mansion is privately owned and closed to the public inside, but its facade is fully visible from Place Forbin where you can observe its architecture while walking through the city center. The location is easily accessible on foot and sits along common routes through the historic district.

The building replaced an active water mill that once operated on the same land, marking the town's shift from industrial work sites to grand residential homes for officials and merchants. This transition from mill to mansion shows how Aix-en-Provence's landscape changed as the town became more important administratively.