Moulin de Claude François

About

The mill of Dannemois is a former water mill located in the village of Dannemois in the Essonne (Île-de-France). The singer Claude François (1939-1978) lived there 14 years, from 1964 to his death in 1978. Today it is a private museum dedicated to singer.

Claude François: In 1964, after two years of booming success, while living in his apartment on 46 Boulevard Exelmans in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the variety star Claude François sought a country house where to live with his family, to receive his friends on weekends, and to rest between two shows tours, to escape the admirers who were assailing. As Radio France international notes, "the François family having abandoned everything on leaving Egypt, Claude wanted to give a place to root his family by choosing this corner of the Essonne". His friend Brigitte Bardot finds him this former municipal mill of 500 m2 on a property of 3 ha, on the River École in Dannemois, quiet village of about 800 inhabitants, close to the A6 motorway, 55 km south of Paris. He set up his mother, and his sister (later his companion Isabelle Forêt...