Raymond Réthoré's office inside the castle of La Mercerie - Magnac Lavalette (Charente) - Nouvelle Aquitaine - France. The castle of La Mercerie, originally composed of a neo-gothic manor house from the end of the 19th century, was acquired in 1924 by the Réthoré brothers, Raymond, an industrialist and then a Gaullist deputy from the Charente, and Alphonse, a self-taught architect. Passionate and fond of art, they undertook to enlarge and improve it. In 1941, Alphonse began designing a wing in the Gabriel style. This first wing was followed by a second one, and finally led to a neo-classical facade 220 meters long (listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest ever built in the 20th century). Unfinished at their death, the castle of La Mercerie fell into neglect, due to a lack of maintenance, the roofs were quicly damaged and the interior decorations deteriorated. After many ups and down, in 2011, the municipality of Magnac-Lavalette and a volunteer association undertook a restoration of the built parts and works of art in order to open the castle to visitors in 2013 after 30 years of abandonment. The Réthoré brothers owned France's most beautiful collection of azulejos (a type of glazed colored tile traditionnaly used in Portugese or Spanish buildings). If most of them are installed in other places in the castle, some very beautiful azulejos are also visible in Raymond Réthoré's office. They come here from the Sant'Anna factory in Lisbon (Portugal).