Campus Background

The Eur-Am Center campus is the historic monument known for almost one millennium as "the Abbey of Pontlevoy." Founded in the eleventh century by a crusader fulfilling his promise to the heavens at what had seemed the moment of his death, the Abbey gained international stature as a Benedictine refuge over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Prosperous times led Pontlevoy's monks to plan and begin building what was to have been a full cathedral. However, then a long epoch of instability and warfare began that would burn the noble edifice and threaten what had become one of central France's greatest ecclesiastical libraries.

Sixteenth-century leadership, under Cardinal Richelieu and others, reoriented the educational mission of the place toward military matters as Pontlevoy's Abbey became one of France's several military academies. This shift in mission would spur the design and building of the campus' great central building, which has stood since the 1600s as a dominating structure of more than 90,000 square feet. Used over the last four centuries as a school for veterans, affluent educators and others, the Abbey was stewarded through most of its history by the family's deVibraye and deSigala, who have always owned and inhabited the nearby Chateau Cheverny.

Ownership transferred in February 2001 when the Abbey was acquired for The Eur-Am Center's use and development.