Maison des Sœurs Macarons, Historic macaron house in Nancy, France

The Maison des Sœurs Macarons is a four-level townhouse in pale beige stucco, its upper floors pierced by three rectangular windows per level, each flanked by grey louvred shutters. The ground floor has three arched windows behind black wrought-iron grilles with circular and scrolling motifs. The entrance gate bears the intertwined initials A and G.

The house was built in 1725 by architect Jean-Nicolas Jennesson for a Lorraine official. Over the centuries it changed hands several times before becoming linked to macaron production.

The name comes from nuns said to have taken refuge here during the Revolution, among them Élisabeth Morlot, whose niece Anne Marchal later owned the house with her husband Nicolas Muller. Tradition credits these sisters with starting Nancy's macarons, though the surviving oven is too small for large-scale production. The street bears their name.

Macaron making here ended in the early 1980s, when Georges Aptel moved the shop to rue Gambetta; the ground floor is now divided into flats. From the street you can still see the stained-glass brise-vues marking the former shop room, immediately right of the entrance door. The house is private, so visits concern the facade and the courtyard well, now closed.

The stained-glass window of 1889 by Ferdinand Gounon, showing a nun, was moved to the shop on rue Gambetta, replaced there by a copy in the early 1990s, and returned to 10 rue des Sœurs-Macarons in 2020. It has been listed as a monument historique since 2021.