Before Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, before the sold-out stadiums and sequinned spectacles, there was a quiet village just north of Paris. It was here, in the early 1970s, that Elton John found both refuge and inspiration. The result? An album that would mark the beginning of a golden era.
Honky Château was Elton John’s fifth studio album, recorded at the residential Château d’Hérouville. Set in the French countryside about an hour from Paris, the château offered artists something rare: space to create without distraction, yet with all the comforts needed to keep a band focused and productive.
By the time of recording in January 1972, Elton was already on the cusp of superstardom. Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water had established him as a serious artist, but Honky Château was the breakout moment. The album gave us “Rocket Man,” a song that would take flight across the world—and the album’s title itself would put this quiet French studio on the map.
There’s a thread of Americana running through this period of Elton’s music. Tumbleweed Connection was overtly American in tone, and Honky Château continued that exploration — blending storytelling, space-age longing, and subtle Southern flavours. That a British artist captured this spirit while recording in a French chateau speaks to the broad appeal of Americana as a sensibility rather than a location.
Château d’Hérouville wasn’t new to music. It had been converted into a recording space in the early ’60s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that it began drawing major acts. The Grateful Dead stopped by in 1971, playing an impromptu gig in the garden. Elton recorded not just Honky Château, but returned for Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and parts of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
And Elton wasn’t the only one. Pink Floyd came here to record Obscured by Clouds. David Bowie tracked Pin Ups in 1973, and returned in 1976 for Low — the first of his Berlin Trilogy. Producer Tony Visconti would later claim the château had a “presence” that was hard to ignore. Whether that meant ghosts or just good acoustics, the place clearly had an atmosphere.
Between 1971 and 1985, the studio welcomed a remarkable list of names: Iggy Pop, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees, Rick Wakeman, MC5, The Sweet, and Uriah Heep, among others. But as musical fashions changed and large residential studios fell out of favour, the château fell quiet. For a time, it was left to decay.
Today, Château d’Hérouville has been restored and returned to its roots as a recording space. Though you can’t just wander in, it still stands—an elegant reminder of the era when artists left the limelight for a countryside escape, and returned with magic on tape.
Songs & Albums Recorded at Château d’Hérouville
This quiet French château has played host to some iconic albums and tracks. Here’s a selection of the music born behind its doors:
- Elton John – Honky Château, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- Pink Floyd – Obscured by Clouds
- David Bowie – Pin Ups, Low
- Iggy Pop – The Idiot
- Bee Gees – “How Deep Is Your Love?”, “Stayin’ Alive” (Saturday Night Fever soundtrack)
Finding the Château
A short musical pilgrimage from Paris, Château d’Hérouville sits in the village of Hérouville-en-Vexin, just off the D928. It’s not vast, but the village is small enough that you won’t miss it.
Address:
4-6 Rue Georges Duhamel, 95300 Hérouville-en-Vexin, France
While it remains a private property, fans can still pass by and reflect on the music born behind those walls.
This is just one of many stops on the map of rock history—the kind of place that shaped records quietly, while the world turned its attention to the charts. At Wine Travel & Song, we like to think of them as musical pilgrimages: places worth seeking out, even if only from the road.
