The passage of the Romans
On this exceptional site, the Romans set up, between the 1st and 2nd centuries, a vast and rich Gallo-Roman farmhouse: a villa, the Roma sancta. This vast agricultural property includes a residential part and an agricultural part. The whole is supplied with water by an aqueduct which you will observe at the bottom of the hotel park.
Destructions, barbarian invasions until the acquisition of the estate by the De Bars, royal notary and priest of Sarlat, in 1462, the story is indecipherable. The most recent excavations, dating from 2019, have uncovered numerous burials. This confirms the hypothesis that a necropolis would have taken place in the ruins of the Gallo-Roman constructions.
Subsequently, it was inhabited and renovated by Louis and then Raymond. Completed in the 17th century, it remained in the same family for more than three centuries. Thereafter, the De Soulignacs followed one another with Jean and Jean-Baptiste, mayor of Sarlat in 1793. Then the brothers Noël and Germain Ser became owners, before being sold in 1887 to the town to become a hospice. < /p>
In 1878, the castle farm was built, to become one of the most important in the region. Several families of farmers follow one another. The last operator, Mr. Tréfeil, arrived in 1948. Sold, the farm lost its original vocation to become a hotel and take the name of “Villa Romaine”. A place of hospitality with a prestigious past!