The Orangery was built in the park of the Château de Thézan for the opening of the hydrotherapy establishment, when the property was bought by Doctor Adolphe Masson in 1862. It was built in the area known in the middle of the 19th century as the Prairie, which increased the wooded area of the Château's park. The Orangery Park was then created.
The Orangery has a neat architecture, characteristic of the mid-19th century. It is a symmetrical rectangular volume, built of rubble stone on a dressed stone base, protected by a mechanical tile roof, with large 3.70 m high steel windows with brick spandrels.
It is accessible from the south via a dressed stone staircase, formerly embellished with a ballustrade, and from the east directly on the ground floor.
The interior concrete floor decorated with false joints imitates a stone paving in squares and shuttles. The elevations are painted with geometric decorations in the Art-Deco style. The north elevation is decorated with an extraordinary rockwork pattern and features a fountain.
Originally, the Orangery, which opens onto the park, was used as a tea room and as a place of recreation for the curists. After the war, the château became a sanatorium and it was probably at this time that a wooden lean-to was built against the north façade to house technical rooms.
Today, the Orangery has a high heritage value due to its authenticity and homogeneity of construction since all the building elements are original.
Only the northern extension alters this architectural ensemble because, built for utilitarian purposes, it is made of wood, brick, large concrete and corrugated iron and breaks the symmetry of the original volume.
In order to save this emblematic building, a restoration project is underway with the partnership of the Fondation du Patrimoine which is organising a collection of donations in the form of sponsorship (link below).