Costaérès: its castle, its legend

Facing Saint-Guirec beach and visible from the terrace of the Castel Beau Site, the Château de Costaérès stands with its neo-medieval silhouette on a small island of pink granite. Its name comes from the Breton "coz-seherez," meaning "old drying place," where sailors once dried their fish. Built between 1892 and 1896 for Bruno Abakanowicz, a Polish engineer and mathematician, this holiday manor—crafted entirely from pink granite and slate—exemplifies the late 19th-century trend for grand coastal estates. Several notable figures have stayed there, including Henryk Sienkiewicz, who wrote his novel *Quo Vadis*—which won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905—while at the property. As a curious detail, the interior was furnished using salvaged wood from a three-masted ship that ran aground on the surrounding reefs in 1896. Located within a protected Natura 2000 zone, the castle is not open to the public, but its iconic silhouette remains a staple of postcards from the Pink Granite Coast.