Historic Jersey buildings
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Property name
La Chesnaie
Other names
La Chênée
Location
Mont de La Chesnaie
Type of property
Substantial country 'mansion' much altered in 20th and 21st centuries
Valuations
No recent transactions
Families associated with the property
- Luce: After nearly 500 years of ownership by one family it was sold in 1961, following the death of John Luce the year before. The new owners undertook great alterations, removing the third storey, which other features suggest may have been original, which would have been very unusual in a house of this vintage.
Datestones
- IL.SLB.FL.ELC - For Jean Luce and Suzanne Le Brocq and their child Francois Luce who married Esther Le Couteur. Francois and Esther married in 1688. Old Jersey Houses suggests that this stone representing two married couples, is unique.
Historic Environment Record entry
This property does not appear to be listed and is dismissed in a short paragraph in the HER website
Loose courtyard with two working buildings attached creating an L plan. Shown on the Richmond Map of 1795.
Two-storey, four-bay farmhouse with original facade and some original windows.
Old Jersey Houses
It is quite common for a property to be listed and featured by HER, yet not to be covered in either volume. This is an exception, which is covered in some detail in Volume One and merits only the briefest of entries in HER.
The former spelling of the name of this St Lawrence house, not to be confused with another of the same name in neighbouring St John, was La Chênée. It was a working farm, owned by the Luce family since about 1500. The likely date for the current house is 1688.
It seems reasonable to suppose that the date of this house is 1688, when Francois and Esther Luce were married, and everything about the house makes such a date probable. A very small and humble two-room house, lower down and to the east, and now demolished, may have been its predecessor.
The house has recently (1965) been sold and has undergone great alterations. The third storey has been removed; it is not certain whether it was original or a later addition. It it was original, it is almost the only house of comparable date with three levels. The continuation of the hood of the first floor fireplace in the top room made it seem as if it was part of the original design.
During alterations small windows were found in the gable ends, one in the east and two in the west, on the first floor.
