Heritage lottery in the Landes: in Saint-Sever, a helping hand for the Crabos islet

Owned by the municipality since 2022, the emblematic site, a former convent and later a palmiped feather processing plant, has been selected by the Heritage Mission. The aid could be between "€100,000 and €300,000."

"It's a wonderful surprise. It will allow us to go even further in the restoration of the Crabos islet," said Arnaud Tauzin, mayor of Saint-Sever. On Monday, September ¹ , the Heritage Mission for the preservation of endangered heritage, led by Stéphane Bern, unveiled the 102 winning departmental sites in mainland France and overseas in 2025.

They will benefit from financial support from the eighth edition of the Heritage Lottery game offering, with its scratch and draw games, part of the stakes of which are dedicated to endangered sites throughout the country (read elsewhere).

For the Crabos block, owned by the municipality since 2022, this aid could be between "€100,000 and €300,000 maximum," Arnaud Tauzin specifies. The exact amount will likely be known in December. At the same time, a fundraising campaign has been launched to appeal for donations from individuals. As of Friday, September 5, 2025, €1,850 had been raised, with a target of €80,000 by March 31, 2026.

Gildas Aulnette, architect and project manager for the Crabos block rehabilitation project at the Perrot et Richard architectural firm, looks back at the various uses this site has had, based on an aerial photo.

"In the foreground, we have a U-shape, it constitutes the private mansion formerly owned by the Barbotan family. Around 1804, the site became a girls' boarding school that welcomed the Ursulines," he says. "A wing and a chapel were then built. Finally, in the 1900s, the industrialist Abel Crabos bought the site to set up his palmiped feather processing factory. The gray elements seen in the background of the private mansion and on the left side are none other than sheet metal and metal roofs added at the time of the factory. The facade with the closed blue shutters contained the factory's offices."

In 2023, the City received just under €1.2 million from the State through the Ministry of Ecological Transition's Green Fund. "Until the City bought it in 2022, the site was abandoned and the southernmost wing was collapsing. With this aid, we began work in 2024 to make the site safe (decontamination, removal of all traces of asbestos, lead, and fuel oil accumulated over decades of production). This work should be completed soon," the architect explains.

With the help of the Heritage Mission, it will now be a matter of "restore[ing] the roof of the wing built at the time of the Ursuline convent, because we had to remove it for safety reasons. Re-do the roof at the chapel level and re-do that at the level of the building which contained the offices."

The site's rehabilitation is expected to result, among other things, in a hotel-restaurant complex. "A call for expressions of interest will be launched next year," announced the mayor. On Friday, September 19, 2025, the city will inaugurate the "Plume" passageway at 3 p.m., which connects the city center to Cap de Gascogne College. This is a milestone event, as the public will now be able to walk through the former factory.