Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN
After spending several years renovating a nearly finished California home with her husband, graphic designer Mark Goff’s last idea was to embark on another big project.
But interest prevailed when a blog about the renovation of a ruined castle in France appeared on his computer screen and he began to read it carefully.
Before he knew it, he was researching how much a castle charged and calculating how temporarily they could sell and move to Europe.
While some want some time to think about the possibility of buying large overlooked assets and emigrating to a foreign country, Goff’s husband, knowledge engineer Phillip Engel, was not very convincing.
“He on a convention call,” Goff told CNN Travel. “I flipped my screen and just said the words: ‘Do you need to buy a castle in the south of France, repair it and create a boutique hotel or an entertainment venue??'”
Seconds after clicking on the images on Goff’s screen, Engel gave him the go-ahead.
“He went back to his convention call and I started with the plane tickets,” Goff adds.
Once they made their decision, there was still the small task of completing the paintings of their Californian house, putting it on the market, promoting it, locating a suitable castle and undertaking the relocation procedure in a foreign country.
Before taking the plunge, the couple made two “discovery” trips to France, where they visited French mansions on the market to see what could be offered to them.
However, it will take a few years to get your affairs in order and the Covid-19 pandemic is delaying your move.
Goff and Engel received an expired visa in 2020, just over 4 years after “the cause that replaced the course of their lives” and moved to the south of France in December, while the country was closed.
When things reopened, they were to see properties, focusing their studies on Gers, a rural domain in southwestern France.
Unfortunately, their initial selection failed, but they temporarily discovered an indexed historic castle in the small village of Avensac, which has less than 50 inhabitants, that met all the requirements.
“We fell in love,” says Goff. The castle itself is amazing. The scenario in which it is dug up is incredible.
After submitting an offer in March, “the lords of the castle” in September 2021.
Château Avensac, which measures about 1,200 square meters, with just 3 hectares of land, charges them about $1. 2 million, taxes included. The writing they signed dates back about 700 years.
According to Goff, the first were 3 brothers who had inherited the assets of their father, a French count.
“They had grown up in this house, so separating from it was very complicated for them,” he explains.
Although the castle is said to have been built in the early nineteenth century, it was built on the site of an older castle dating from the fourteenth century. It has about 48 rooms, plus a billiard room and a library.
“It’s a manageable size,” Goff says. I mean, it’s huge. But it has a manageable size. I saw castles from 90 to 120 rooms.
While they themselves are at “ground zero,” Goff and Engel have big plans for the property, which requires a great deal of work.
Neither of them mainly enjoys hospitality, but they are not short of ideas.
“We don’t just need to make a boutique hotel where other people come overnight,” Goff says. “Our purpose is to create occasions when you come to the castle, stay for a week and do things.
“So things like cooking, knitting, painting, biking, navigating the canals, even writing,” he adds.
“Each week will focus on some kind of concentration. It’s about creating that fantasy and an experience. Fantasy is the ultimate part.
They think the assets would be an ideal place to hold weddings and hold weddings later on.
“Our target, of course, will be the Americans, because that’s what we know,” Goff adds, adding that they must get out of their zone of convenience in due course.
Even if it will take many paintings to renovate the castle, the duo say they are determined to remain the essence of the place.
“We are restoration professionals, not renovation professionals,” says Goff. “So each and every detail that’s there, we keep them.
“That’s a component of what attracted us to the property. It didn’t turn out. The setup is amazing. We have nothing to add. We’re just recreating what’s already there.
Although the castle is “definitely in the countryside”, it is easily accessible, with Toulouse-Blagnac International Airport about a 45-minute drive away.
When the pandemic hit and they rented an outdoor space from the village in the buying process, Goff and Engel didn’t have a chance to meet with the locals for quite some time.
“At some point, I guess the news that the castle had been sold and those Americans were coming,” Engel says.
Eager to make an impression, they invited their new neighbors to celebrate the day of the signing of the contracts.
“We opened the doors and said ‘Go ahead. ‘ And other people were saying”really?”We told them to walk around and have fun,” Goff says.
They were extremely happy when the locals showed up and started exploring the place.
“The past was very, very discreet,” Engel explains. So some of them [the villagers] have lived in the village all their lives and have never been there. “
Since then, Goff and Engel have hosted a village-wide Halloween and say they need locals to feel included in their castle experience.
“Of course, this is our home,” Engel says.
But not all parties and parties for the bride and groom, there were many things to do.
While they plan to do the maximum of the castle’s “basic work” themselves, Goff and Engel hire craftsmen to take care of the infrastructure.
They have recounted their renovation adventures on their blog, Au Château, and have also hosted a YouTube channel, where they plan to feature broadcasts of Château Avensac.
“We’re looking for a way to show up a little bit on YouTube and entertain other people more,” Goff says. “We don’t need to be talking heads. “
One of the responsibilities they focused on is adding en-suite bathrooms to the bedrooms.
Lately they are executing their plans with an in-house designer and describe their taste as “traditional with a slightly unexpected side”.
“All the bathrooms are designed to be very classic, because there was never a bathroom (when the castle was built),” says Goff.
Some of the luminaires they tested were inspired by the first photographs of the Waldorf Astoria New York.
Goff and Engel plan to install air conditioning in the rooms. However, this suggestion caught the attention of his village.
“There’s a feeling here that you don’t want air conditioning,” Engel says. “I told the former owner and she looked at me in surprise. But we’ll be waiting for a lot of Americans, and they’ll be waiting for sure. “.
For now, they pass by keeping the blinds open a few centimeters during the day in summer and opening them at night, which is supposedly a more typical technique for life in a castle in France.
Although they have a very express design vision, Goff and Engel admit that their budget would possibly not grow as much as they had anticipated.
“The paintings turned out to be much more than we thought,” Goff says, explaining that he and Engel used the remaining money from the sale of their California home to pay for the renovation.
“If we had been reasonable, we could have bought a castle a little cheaper,” Engel adds.
“And then we would have had enough budget to do the right renovation. But we’re not reasonable, so we had to go through the other side. “
This “other path” has been to postpone projects until they have the budget to carry them out.
Among the plans they had to suspend the transformation of their chai wine, an outdoor wine garage area, into “a massive entertainment area with level lighting. “
“It will be an addition. Because then we can have wonderful things inside, beaten at night, without disturbing anyone,” Says Goffs.
They’ve had trouble booking some structural work, as contractors on the domain have been under siege since the pandemic and are too busy to hire them.
“It’s a project,” Engel says. Some appliances date back to the 1930s. “
Naturally, the language barrier also proved difficult. Although he spoke a little French, having full conversations with the French vendors proved to be difficult, which slowed things down a bit.
But while the renovation process hasn’t been as straightforward as they would have liked, the couple are confident they’ll be able to open some rooms until next year.
“We hope to put everything in position by 2023 to start generating some profits to continue into the future,” Goff says. “We need to do checks to put our feet on the ground. “
For now, Goff and Engel enjoy life at the castle and say every day is an adventure for them.
“That’s the component we love,” Engel says. [The castle] is a bit glued, but it’s habitable and has spent the winter with our limited heating system. “
While they search ahead despite everything to be able to welcome visitors to Château Avensac, they like to have the stall to themselves, as well as to see the culmination of their work, slowly but surely.
“It’s exciting and fun,” says Goff. We’re on the honeymoon stage. “
Correction: A previous of this tale distorted the tale and topped the number of rooms in the castle.
El-CNN-Wire™
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