In the middle of the historical city centre, on a street notable for its buildings dating from the Renaissance up through the Enlightenment and French Revolutions, is a vast banking establishment from 1854, unchanged since the 1920s and built over the medieval abbatial church of Saint Martin’s abbey.
Built in an L shape and three storeys tall, in addition to an attic and basement level, the edifice is surrounded, in the back, by verdant grounds enclosed by walls topped with metal fencing. In the L’s inner corner, a vast one-storey extension was added with a glass roof and a rooftop terrace, which is safeguarded by a wrought-iron guardrail.
Facing east and south, the bank is partially preceded to the south by a paved courtyard enclosed by solid fences painted in faded imperial green, while the main entrance gate is framed by two wrought-iron pillars, topped with lanterns. Designed for parking vehicles, and bordered by a row of box trees, the space separates the bank from the caretaker’s cottage. To the north, located between the bank and an outbuilding and accessible via a gate of the same colour situated between two ashlar stone walls, a rear paved courtyard provides a second entrance to the property. In addition, a magnificent octagonal turret topped with a finial flanks this side of the establishment.
Under its hipped slate roof with a slight eave supported by sculpted stone soffits, the bank contains a floor area of approximately 3,600 m². Two domes with finials, the roofs of which alternate between rectangular and fish-scale slate tiles, are located on the main street-side façade as well as the northern façade facing the grounds. Mostly clad in plaster, the building also has white ashlar stone adorning its basement level, quoins and window and door surrounds. Rectangular or arched windows and doors symmetrically cadence the edifice and are safeguarded by half-louvred or louvred shutters, while its cross-windows are protected by metal bars.

The Bank

The main building is made up of an administrative section, which includes the reception and personnel spaces, safe deposit rooms, offices and mechanical equipment room, as well as the accommodations for both the bank’s director (with approximately 400 m²) and the head bank teller.
With a projecting forepart topped with a guardrail-protected patio on the first floor level, the main entrance is located on the exterior corner of the L-shaped building. Safeguarded by wrought-iron bars and demarcated by a circular-motif frieze, tall arched glass double doors are crowned with a fanlight. On the left side of the building’s forepart is access to the basement level.
To the left of the main entrance, several semi-circular steps provide access to another set of double doors – partially glazed on their upper half and topped with a fanlight – which opens onto an entrance hall that leads, on the first floor, to the head bank teller’s accommodations.
On the southern façade, facing the courtyard, stone steps with wrought-iron guardrails lead to two pairs of partially glazed double doors with fanlights, which open onto either the utility rooms in the director’s accommodations or the offices in the building’s administrative section. On the façade’s western end is the entrance to the one-vehicle garage, while the turret to the north provides direct access to the rooftop terrace.
On the side facing the grounds, three rounded glass doors topped with fanlights and safeguarded by half-louvred shutters provide access to a meeting room while several other entrances are also located along this façade.

The ground floor
The main entrance to this level’s approximately 1,400 m² of floor area opens onto a double-entrance security door with a mosaic tile floor bordered by colourful geometric patterns, which can be found throughout practically the entirety of this level. Continuing on, under a glass roof with Art Deco-style metalwork, the vast reception room has walls covered in wood panelling up to eye level, as well as carved wooden counters arranged in a U shape, on which are placed faience slabs manufactured by the Nevers’ Montagnon factory, which also made the skirting boards throughout.
Mid-height or full-height wood panelling, marble fireplaces with chimneybreast mirrors and Art Deco-style wrought-iron metalwork are featured in most of the rooms. Offices, cash desks, the mechanical equipment room, utility rooms for the personnel, meeting rooms, the mailroom and safe deposit room are also located on the ground floor, while the various staircases that lead to the first floor are all protected by wrought-iron guardrails fashioned with Art Deco motifs.
The southern wing also includes a room meant for storing the gardening equipment, a bicycle storage room as well as the director’s garage.
All the spaces are bathed in light by the many windows that symmetrically cadence the building’s façades.
The first floor
This level is divided into the director’s flat to the south and that of the head bank teller’s to the east.
The first is accessible via a double quarter-turn sculpted stone staircase adorned with a patterned red carpet, which leads to a vast gallery. White-painted wood panelling, straight-plank or mitred herringbone hardwood floors, moulded cornices, gilded latch stiles and tall windows can be found throughout this flat. A dining room, accessible from the gallery, is decorated with a crystal tassel chandelier and heated by a Second Empire-style marble fireplace with a mirrored chimneybreast. From here, two sets of double doors open onto a breath-taking circular living room with a cupola ceiling and a montgolfiere chandelier, a hexadecagon hardwood floor arranged around an inlaid star, a white marble fireplace with an arched mirrored chimneybreast as well as a view over the grounds from a patio.
The gallery also leads to two hallways, the first of which provides access to the former domestics’ quarters. This area includes a fitted kitchen with walls tiled with a subtle floral pattern, a linen cupboard, the service stairwell as well as two bedrooms. The second hallway provides access on either end to an office and four bedrooms with their private shower or bathrooms.
The second floor
At the top of a double quarter-turn staircase is a second flat in need of renovation. Its semi-circular vestibule is bathed in light by three tall windows, which are located above the bank’s main entrance and provide access to the patio facing the street. This flat repeats the same décor that precedes it, except that here most of its walls are covered in floral-patterned wallpaper. The entrance hall leads to the living room, an office as well as an alcove. The latter provides access to a long corridor, which leads to a dining room, kitchen, wardrobe, pantry, bathroom, lavatory, four bedrooms including two with their own shower rooms as well as the double quarter-turn staircase, which continues on to the attic space. In addition, a small recess provides access to two more bedrooms and a lavatory.
The attic
Accessible via the service staircase in the director’s flat as well as the one in the head bank teller’s flat, the attic space extends over the entire first floor. Under their metal rafters, they need to be reconfigured and refurbished.
The basement
With approximately 1,400 m² of floor area, the basement includes several safe deposit rooms and their strongboxes, archive rooms, cloakrooms, a central cash desk, dining hall, sanitary facilities, lavatories and urinals for the personnel as well as several cellars that house a fuel tank, the furnace room and a few storerooms. In addition, the sole vestige of the bygone medieval abbatial church – a Gothic ribbed vault – can be found on this level.