Château de Chenonceau The Château de Chenonceau ( ) is a French château near the small village of Chenonceaux , in the Indre - et - Loire " département " of the Loire Valley in France . The château was built on the site of an old mill on the River Cher , sometime before its first mention in writing in the 11th century . It was designed by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l ' Orme . History . The original château was torched in 1412 to punish owner Jean Marques for an act of sedition . He rebuilt a château and fortified mill on the site in the 1430s . Subsequently , his indebted heir Pierre Marques sold the castle to Chamberlain for King Charles VIII of France in 1513 ( this leads to 2013 being considered the 500th anniversary of the castle : MDXIII – MMXIII . ) Bohier destroyed the castle , though its 15th - century keep was left standing , and built an entirely new residence between 1515 and 1521 . The work was sometimes overseen by his wife Katherine Briçonnet , who delighted in hosting French nobility , including King Francis I on two occasions . In 1535 the château was seized from Bohier ' s son by King Francis I of France for unpaid debts to the Crown ; after Francis ' death in 1547 , Henry II offered the château as a gift to his mistress , Diane de Poitiers , who became fervently attached to the château along the river . In 1555 she commissioned Philibert de l ' Orme to build the arched bridge joining the château to its opposite bank . Diane then oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens along with a variety of fruit trees . Set along the banks of the river , but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces , the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles . Diane de Poitiers was the unquestioned mistress of the castle , but ownership remained with the crown until 1555 , when years of delicate legal maneuvers finally yielded possession to her . However , after King Henry II died in 1559 , his strong - willed widow and regent Catherine de ' Medici forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont . Queen Catherine then made Chenonceau her own favorite residence , adding a new series of gardens . As Regent of France , Catherine would spend a fortune on the château and on spectacular nighttime parties . In 1560 , the first ever fireworks display seen in France took place during the celebrations marking the ascension to the throne of Catherine ' s son Francis II . The grand gallery , which extended along the existing bridge to cross the entire river , was dedicated in 1577 . On Catherine ' s death in 1589 the château went to her daughter - in - law , Louise de Lorraine - Vaudémont , wife of King Henry III . At Chenonceau Louise was told of her husband ' s assassination in 1589 and she fell into a state of depression , spending the remainder of her days wandering aimlessly along the château ' s corridors dressed in mourning clothes amidst somber black tapestries stitched with skulls and crossbones . After that , it was owned by Louise ' s heir César of Vendôme and his wife , Françoise of Lorraine , Duchess of Vendôme , and passed quietly down the Valois line of inheritance , alternately inhabited and abandoned for more than a hundred years . Château de Chenonceau was bought by the Duke of Bourbon in 1720 . Little by little , he sold off all of the castle ' s contents . Many of the fine statues ended up at Versailles . The estate itself was finally sold for 130 , 000 livres in 1733 to a wealthy squire named . Claude ' s wife ( daughter of financier Samuel Bernard and grandmother of George Sand ) , , brought life back to the castle by entertaining the leaders of The Enlightenment : Voltaire , Montesquieu , Buffon , Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle , Pierre de Marivaux , and Jean - Jacques Rousseau . She saved the château from destruction during the French Revolution , preserving it from being destroyed by the Revolutionary Guard because it was essential to travel and commerce , being the only bridge across the river for many miles . She is said to be the one who changed the spelling of the Château ( from Chenonceaux to Chenonceau ) to please the villagers during the French Revolution . She dropped the " x " at the end of the Château ' s name to differentiate what was a symbol of royalty from the Republic . Although no official sources have been found to support this legend , the Château has been since referred to and accepted as Chenonceau . In 1864 , Daniel Wilson , a Scotsman who had made a fortune installing gaslights throughout Paris , bought the château for his daughter . In the tradition of Catherine de ' Medici , she would spend a fortune on elaborate parties to such an extent that her finances were depleted and the château was seized and sold to José - Emilio Terry , a Cuban millionaire , in 1891 . Terry sold it in 1896 to a family member , Francisco Terry , and in 1913 , the Menier family , famous for their chocolates , bought the château and still own it to this day . During World War I the gallery was used as a hospital ward ; during the Second War it was a means of escaping from the Nazi occupied zone on one side of the River Cher to the " free " zone on the opposite bank . In 1951 , the Menier family entrusted the château ' s restoration to Bernard Voisin , who brought the dilapidated structure and the gardens ( ravaged in the Cher River flood in 1940 ) back to a reflection of its former glory . An architectural mixture of late Gothic and early Renaissance , Château de Chenonceau and its gardens are open to the public . Other than the Royal Palace of Versailles , it is the most visited château in France . The château is classified as a " Monument historique " since 1840 by the French Ministry of Culture . Today , Chenonceau is a major tourist attraction and in 2007 received around 800 , 000 visitors .