The Town Hall in Gournay-sur-Marne is strategically located in a loop of the Marne River; the current Gournay Town Hall was built on the site of a fortress used by Henri de Navarre to get back Paris back from the Leaguers in 1590. The municipality was set up there in 1925.
After the death of his spouse, Louis Ancelin disposed of the castle which passed through the hands of several owners until the vice-admiral Claude Elysée de Court (1665-1752) acquired it. He undertook the supervision of its interior decorating and landscaping of the park thus leaving a deep imprint of his time spent here. After his disappearance, the castle suffered much damage due to the installation within its walls of a factory transforming thistle silk to textile silk. It was damaged again during the conflict of 1870. Then, the Nast family acquired the mansion and gave it, by alliance, to Roger Ballu, the son of the famous architect Théodore Ballu. Roger’s son, Guillaume Ballu, mayor of Gournay from 1924 to1942, sold the domain to the municipality in 1925. The town hall is listed as a historical heritage Monument since 1945.
