Today we are introducing an elegantly designed and typographically pleasing theme, Château.
Designed by Ignacio Ricci, Château has been crafted with close attention to detail and typography. Its beautiful, minimalist look allows you to make your content the focal point of your blog.
Aside from a brilliant design, this theme offers many cool features that help you to personalize your blog. There are two color schemes, three layout options, custom accent color, Custom Header Image, Custom Background, six widget areas, and three post formats — Aside, Gallery, and Image. It’s loaded with options that make the theme flexible enough to fit a variety of sites.
Read all about Château’s features on the Theme Showcase.
WordPress.com News 
This is one elegant theme! Love it!
Wow this is really great, it really appeals to the typographic design nut in me.
Awesome…
Very nice. I like it, but it’s a little too elegant for my blog. I can see it’s working for a poetry blog, though. Maybe I’ll start one so I can use this… 😉
This is very elegant! I’m not sure if I’m elegant enough to use this theme! But it is tempting…
Nice Idea and I like the name, but it’s not mine. Too “grey” 😉 and everything is so small…
I need colours and something “special” 😀
You can customize the header image, accent color and background to make it colorful 🙂
If that’s not enough, how about Custom Design upgrade? With the upgrade, you can customize it even more to get something “special” 🙂
Nice!
Very clean and organized. The royal font and colour is also excellent.
simple & nice
Great stuff! Do you know if the font can be changed for the post titles?
If you sign up for Custom Design upgrade, you are able to choose a font from the fantastic choice of fonts to change the post title.
Simply stunning! Well done, and thank you!
Lovely! I rarely feel tempted but this one has me thinking about a change.
Neat 🙂
Chateau indeed!
That’s really really nice!!
I love the elegant style!
Still not for me.
I need something similar to Delicious Magazine and free, but I love the elegant font. =)
Oh, I love this one so much! I was looking for something lighter, yet elegant. Very lovely.
Very Classy. It will prove popular no doubt. Chapeau to Chateau!
This is beautiful, I might have to switch! Thank you for posting all the new, free themes, applause!
fancy
I like this elegant theme very much. It’s simple and clean and has great features too. Thank you. 🙂
Very nice, clean, organized, classy and customizable. Very cool!
That’s really very nice! Adopted it earlier this evening and procrastinating from shaping it as I type!
I love this FREE THEME!! It’s the best! Thank you Word Press ♥!!
Beautiful theme!
Just 2 points which it would be better to change:
1-Where are the previous link at the home page?
2-Maybe if you add little images at the previous posts (like Inuit Types theme) the readibility would be better.
I hope to make these changes!
Thank u!
Thanks for your opinion.
The home page, at the moment, works as a special template but not as an archive page. This is why the home page doesn’t have previous / next posts link.
My first impression is this theme looks more or less like standard front page design, a banner,maybe it flash, left restangle for menu.items, right rectangle for contents. I dont see any elements associated with chateau beside the image.
Its okay, i have to say so.
Great theme! But how do I download it? I don’t see a download button….
Hey I recognize that photo! The Petit Trianon at Chateau Versailles. I was just there. Looks great!
This is a very tempting theme. It is elegant, lovely, and easy to take in all at once. I like those dates on the side of the posts. I like the italics. I like the fonts. I like the option of changing the feature color.
I only wish the text field were wider. But wow, you did a gorgeous job.
And thank you so much for offering it as a Free Theme!
-Peregrine
This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Thank you!
Very classic, I love it 😀
Αnd something else 🙂
I think that is better to add the choice to erase the title from the header if you want to use only your image.
Ii’ s a great theme and if you could change it in some details, then it’ll be one from the most popular!
:p
I agree that’s a good idea. I’ll add it as post-launch enhancement to let user hide blog title and description with a custom header. Thanks!
Hi Stranger,
Just to let you know, Chateau now has an option to hide blog title.
Happy blogging!
Thanks.
new theme again and this is very nice and simple..
Wow, so happy to hear this, now let me try first! Lots of thanks to WP.com!
i like it a lot! is there a way to preview it before activating?
Very nice!!! Will check it out more closely.
I don’t know that I’ll ever say anything classy enough to merit this theme…
love it! im using this theme now! ♥♥♥
Elegant; nice!
I like it because the picture is a bit eerie….I may switch it over. I am definitely not as elegant as this theme though.
So I’ve been playing around with this theme and maybe I’m just blind – but when I click on one of my “pages” I don’t see anywhere to click to edit it like I do on the posts.
Just what a queen like me needs to make my lovely e-WordPress guests feel at e-home. – LOL! Tracey Bond-Tolbert
Nearly perfect! if not for the girly font of the headline….
Classy! Very tempted to change…
Very Nice…but it won’t work for me. I need something, bright and exciting!!
Nice, but I’ll stick to my present theme 🙂
I love this! It’s the best one (that is free) that has come out in a very long time, in my ten-cents worth. Thank you so much!!
Love this theme! Thanks WordPress!
It’s elegant and beautiful, plain and simple. the format is easy to search through. Nice work.
Wow…. Fantastic
I like it!
The clean and minimalist approach of this theme is very inviting! I just wish the “concise” format could also be implemented in the front page, not just the archive pages. Here’s to hoping that the Theme Team would introduce more themes that present a combination of a “concise” front page presentation of blog posts & a clean and minimalistic layout–something within the vein of Inuit Types.
Keep them coming, WP.com!
Cheers!
yes. i like this.. elegant and clean..
Elegant. Clean. Love it!
Good to see we’re getting an influx of new themes.
Because my blog topic is pretty emotionally charged (my crazy divorce and its aftermath — and my readers’ crazy divorces as well…), I DIG the simple, elegant themes. Of course the current blood red color may indicate otherwise! But I may have to play with this one — thanks for the option. 🙂
Wow, Free Theme again. Thank for WordPress.com team hardwork to keep WordPress.com blogging experience continue improvement.
I like this theme better than any that have come down the pike in a very long time, and I’ve liked some of them very much. This is an awesome theme.
nice theme
Very nice.
Love this! So elegant! Great work, theme team. I’m so tempted.
Now it’s the conflict between 2011 and Chateau. I love the single column layout that’s a reasonable width on 2011, not the full page size. I wish that was an option on Chateau too. I’m not too keen on the blog post font, but I can change that with my Custom Design upgrade and I’ll have to see how the photos present in this theme.
I like the minimalist format, but the “detail” option does not seem to work. When I select it, past posts still have the two-column, abbreviated format.
The option for archive page style is literally for archive pages only. The front page acts like a special template that focuses the latest post and sticky post(s).
You know I love this theme, but when I started to play with it I discovered one small problem > the tags on the side of the posts and the categories next to the title, makes this “minimalist” them look very messy. Similar deal with clean home. Is there a conspiracy to make the minimalist themes look messy? Just teasing. Hope I can change that with the custom upgrade.
I wouldn’t say that’s messy in my opinion but you are able to hide the tags with CSS if you don’t want them appear at all.
Perfect. 🙂
Thank you very much, it’s so beautiful!!!
This is such a gorgeous theme. Thanks for making it available to members, WordPress Theme Team!
soooo elegant! Keep rockin’ 🙂
Wow! Beautiful ..and I love the fonts! Thank you.
I like your new themes. It’s so beautyful.
The font of the post title is so excellent.
Thank you ♥
awesome, just adopted it!
Great work by Ignacio, looking forward to using it.
Really nice, I’ll be adding this one. :]
Nice and elegant. 🙂
Elegant, indeed.
It’s very good! I like it! 🙂
Very nice! Royal almost. 🙂
Love this type of themes, nice and simple.
Looks pretty neat. 😉
Elegant indeed! Were I up for a switch, I’d love to try this one. Thanks for all you do.
Not right for me, but pretty cool anyway.
Guys, I use HR tags in the posts sometimes. The horizontal line though doesn’t seem to display in this theme. Why is that?
Thanks for bringing this to attention. Style for hr tags have been added now.
Swanky!
Looks very nice! (checks the preview button). 😀
Nice theme… I appreciate it!
Stunning and elegant.
Thanks again WordPress for another great free theme. I’ve been messing around with it since the announcement yesterday and I have to say I am so pleased with the results. Those that are worried about it being “too elegant” or “too messy/cluttered” can definitely change things up with the custom design upgrade. 🙂
Wow, might have to use this.
This one looks gorgeous!
I like Chateau so much that I updated my blog to it. Before I have used “Duotone” for three years, which is a very interesting theme but somewhat clunky.
Looks very neat but probably because of the color combination used…reminds me of a black and white journal.
I love getting emails about new themes. It takes a lot to impress me, however this is nice. It reminds me a lot of 2011. I’m waiting for more magazine themes that have handwriting scripts and are more artistic in nature…free is always nice. 😉
Nice and clean. I’m considering trying an new one, and I may have to check this out.
Gonna have to give this one a go! Thanks, WordPress.
I’m loving this theme. The only thing I don’t like is how tags are constantly visible to the left (or right, depending) of posts. I wish there was a way to change that. Looks like they are in the way and distracting to a reader.
Finally; a free magazine theme that’s of quality. Thank you!
ARRRGH. After three years and five different blogs, this is the first theme that made me finally let go of Misty Look. Kudos and thank you so much for this awesome theme. My heart thanks you, and my blogs thank you!
wow, this is a beauty!
I like it. I’m considering changing my blog template (yet again) using chateau.
But can the sidebar be on the right for this template?
Wow.
At one point there, when I read “elegantly designed and typographically pleasing theme”, I thought it wasn’t gonna be free.
But I don’t see any prices around.
Looks really nice. Thanks for offering it for free.
It looks very much like a diary. I’ll have to think of a way of using it.
Very beautiful.
Should it have featured images it would be P E R F E C T…
But I think I’m going to use it too!!! 😀