Hôtel de Basquiat, Neoclassical private mansion on Cours d'Albret, Bordeaux, France

The Hôtel de Basquiat is a neoclassical mansion in central Bordeaux featuring ionic pilaster capitals on its garden facade. A carriage entrance opens onto an inner courtyard, creating a sheltered private space behind the formal street-facing walls.

Joseph de Basquiat de Mugriet, a counselor at the Bordeaux Parliament, bought the land from the archbishopric in 1777 and had François Lhote build the mansion between 1778 and 1781. Sold as national property in 1792, it passed to the Wirtz heirs, then to Colonel Pierlot, who died there in 1864. The city bought it in 1887 and installed the rectorate; it served as the rector's residence until 2024.

The building was sold as national property in 1792 to Louis-Gaspard d'Estournel, founder of Château Cos d'Estournel, acting for the German financier Jean-Rodolphe Wirtz, enriched by the slave trade. The commune bought it in 1887 and installed the rectorate of the Academy of Bordeaux there; it remained the rector's official residence until 2024.

The mansion stands at 29 cours d'Albret, reached from the street through a carriage door that opens onto the inner court; the garden front and its sculpture are not visible from the pavement. The building was sold in February 2026 to the LFPI REIM group, which plans cultural activities, dining and offices with partial public opening.

The garden was halved when the rectorate was enlarged in the 1960s, leaving the square plot seen today. At its centre stands Henri Bouillon's 1896 sculpture Le Coupeur de lys, the Lily Cutter, a work by a Charentais artist that most passers-by on the Cours d'Albret never notice.