The abbey was founded in 1118 when Simon de Neauffle and his wife Eve donated land to the monks of Savigny Abbey to endow a monastery in honour of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist. Vital, Abbot of Savigny accepted their gift and sent a group of monks under the direction of Arnaud, who became their first abbot. Besides the founders, others of the nobility came to the aid of the new Savigniac community.
As soon as the abbey was well established, many postulants were admitted, thus making possible in 1137 the foundation of Le Breuil-Benoît Abbey in the Diocese of Évreux. In 1148 Vaux-de-Cernay, together with the entire Congregation of Savigny, entered the Order of Cîteaux and became an affiliation of Clairvaux Abbey. From this time on they prospered, building a church in the simple Cistercian style. The tomb of Simon and his wife was placed in front of the altar of the abbey church, on the left. Over time, additional buildings were constructed, as well as a mill and a fish farm.
After passing through various hands, in the 1880s the abbey site was bought by Charlotte de Rothschild, who stabilized the ruins of the church and commissioned the Rothschild family architect Félix Langlais to restore the 17th-century abbey building with interiors emulating the chapterhouse, which had remained intact. She used it for a summer home, with stables for her thoroughbreds on the grounds. Her grandson Baron Henri de Rothschild inherited the property in 1903 and further updated the residence; it was the site of his experiments in child nutrition.
In November 1942, the property of Henri de Rothschild and his son James was expropriated under the antisemitic laws of Vichy France. Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey was sold at auction to the industrialist Félix Amiot, who moved his private offices there. The estate was also used as an agricultural centre. Amiot’s heirs sold the property in 1988 and it became a hotel, with a capacity of 1,200 and a heliport, but still drawing its water from the original spring. It was classified as a historical monument in 1926 and fully protected in January 1994. The abbey mill, which appears in 19th-century landscape paintings, was sold in 2012 and in 2016 opened as a regional museum. In the early 2020s, the abbey was acquired by the hospitality company Paris Society and extensively renovated into a luxury hotel with interiors by Cordélia de Castellane.
