King Hassan II’s Lavish Legacy: Rothschild Château Acquired in 1984

In 1984, the late king became the owner of the Château de Gretz-Armainvilliers, which had previously belonged to the Rothschild family settled on part of the Brie plain between Favières and Ferrières-en-Brie. With an area of 8,000 m², this building of nearly 100 rooms is anchored in the heart of a domain of nearly 1,000 hectares, wooded, within which there is a beautiful pond, journalists from La République de Seine-et-Marne described at the time. The amount of the acquisition was not revealed.

On the orders of King Hassan II, renovation work on certain rooms had been carried out. "Minor work" that had cost 200 million francs. In total, 1,343 additional square meters had been created. "Consulting the plans is simply staggering," the journalists commented in their writings. The basement houses all the outbuildings with a delivery tunnel called "the metro". Then comes the series of pantries and kitchens. Moroccan and French kitchens follow the Moroccan vegetable garden, then the Moroccan battery before the cold pastry and finally the ice cream parlor in an alignment of rooms that makes you dizzy.

After the work, the sovereign never officially visited his Château de Gretz-Armainvilliers until his death in 1999. In 2008, his son and successor Mohammed VI sold it for 200 million euros.