A Chateau of One's Own Page 2

  On the drive back from our dispiriting visit, Bud made her true desires clear, once again.

  ‘Sam, you know I want a country house. But this is too much. You couldn’t give away some of these old houses ten years ago. Now, just when we’re looking, the prices are going up, the market is skyrocketing. Maybe that’s a sign.’

  We drove along in silence for a short time. I gazed out the window as clouds gathered over the hills in huge clumps of black and grey. It wasn’t raining but there was always the threat of rain. The clouds formed massive columns and lurched toward the car.

  I didn’t really know how to respond to my wife. The more we looked, the more I doubted we could ever find what we were looking for.

  ‘Don’t get too discouraged. A few bad visits can’t make or break our plans. It’s an exciting thing, this thing of ours.’

  ‘I don’t know what we’re trying to do. I know I want to live in the country. And I want to live in Europe, not necessarily Ireland. And the way prices are going, it may not be possible for us.’

  ‘For the time being, the only thing we can do in Europe is buy a house and run a business. I haven’t found a lot of jobs in Ireland, not for me at least. You know, we found all those houses in France. Seems like a good deal. I don’t quite understand why the big houses are so cheap there, but we should check it out,’ I ventured.

  ‘I’m open to that. Who knows, we might just fall in love with the perfect house.’

  Famous last words, as they say. So, on a whim, fresh from the wounds of another failed house visit, we set off for France. Whimsy is never a good rationale for anything.

  This decision to search in France had been brewing for a while. With nearly 40,000 castles dating from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, it appeared to be the land of opportunity. It seemed too good to be true. The decision made sense on a primal level, too. My family came to New Orleans, Louisiana a couple of hundred years ago from France to set up shop in the New World and start a new life. I am Cajun, and grew up in the swampy, mosquito-infested environs of the Big Easy. According to family legend, my ancestors were trappers, criminals and all-round brigands. Only in a Cajun family would this be a source of pride.

  The most intriguing features of my home town and Cajun culture in general include the extraordinary spicy food and a hidden love of suffering. It’s on the latter point that my Cajun background and my wife’s Irish roots conjoin. If there is an arduous, painful way to do something, we will discover and pursue it with single-minded determination. Delighted we can keep up the tradition.

  We returned to Bud’s family home to say brief goodbyes. Everyone at the house seemed surprised by our abrupt change of plans. But we were on a mission. Nothing could stop us now. And so we set off for France, cutting our visit ‘home’ short by a week. We slipped into our cramped rental car and secured Blue in her seat. We bid adieu to Bud’s family. I made a 13-point turn to reposition the car.

  ‘Make sure you drive on the right side of the road!’ Bud’s mother said.

  ‘Do you mean the right side or the left side?’ I teased.

  ‘You know, the correct side, the left side.’

  ‘No problem.’

  We have had this conversation every time we’ve visited Ireland. Bud’s mother is scared to death I will forget and drive like an American. She has reason. I’ve made this mistake several times now.

  ‘I’m excited about our trip,’ Bud said as we started down the lane. ‘I don’t know what to expect, but I have a feeling it will work out. We need a change.’ Then, without blinking an eye, Bud reversed direction, ‘Do you think we’re doing the right thing?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but for now, all we can do is look.’ I said.

  ‘It’s just it’s such a big thing – the move, the language, starting a business. Can we make it work?’

  She had a point. We’d never bought a house, we’d never started a business and we spoke very little French. I came to a roundabout and had to think twice about which direction I was entitled to take.

  ‘I think it can work. What have we got to lose? Let’s say the house and the B&B don’t work. Then we sell. Even if we sell for less than we buy, it’s OK. We’ll work again. Save more money,’ I said.

  ‘I know, I know. I just want our children to grow up in the country like I did. And I want us both to spend time with them. Those are my concerns.’

  This really was the nub of our move. We had long lamented the extended hours and rigidity of our jobs. As it was, I rarely saw my wife and daughter. To us, simply unacceptable. We wanted time together.

  ‘I just worry sometimes, that’s all.’

  This was one of many such exchanges but the truth was, we felt there was only one solution. We simply had to make a move. Our mission was grounded firmly in a dream. The choice is always easier when you feel you have no choice.

  And so, that last-minute trip to France on a dreary, inauspicious January day is where our story truly begins. After years of searching, we found ourselves sitting in a rundown French café in the Loire Valley, waiting for the man who would change our lives. Like the revered Frank and Rosemarie, Philippe the estate agent would be dropped into our laps by providence. Often, I’ve noticed, seemingly random intersections can change the path of one’s life. Damn them and bless them at the same time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  All’s Well that Begins Well

  Our slightly hunched, congenial estate agent came through the door followed by a gust of wind and rain that frightened the quiet inhabitants of the Café des Sports in Loudun, in the Loire Valley, about an hour or so south of Tours. We meekly introduced ourselves as Philippe brushed large shards of dandruff from his blue sport coat.

  Philippe explained the situation, as he saw it. Ten minutes from the café, he had discovered a genteel aristocrat trying to sell a delightful nineteenth-century chateau with 30 acres and a pool. Madame’s house was small by chateau standards but well appointed and basically ready to live in immediately. We all hopped into our rental car and started down the road. Butterflies fluttered with abandon in our anxious bellies.

  Just around the bend on a small country road, the chateau loomed ahead on a hill. It was composed of red brick and ‘tuffeau’, the white, porous limestone found in the Loire Valley region. Tuffeau is not particularly tough but quite malleable, as far as stone goes. You can shape it and carve it and define it pretty much as you wish. A lovely decoration.

  The house had a great sense of verticality, dotted on top with graceful spires touched with zinc weathervanes. Each window was surrounded by a delicate confection of laced stone carvings and glass. The main entrance door was carved to within an inch of its life, heads and horses and dogs sprouting all over, the door thick with life and a keen 1800s Romantic imagination. We arrived in front of it expectantly. Philippe made the usual polite and formal introductions in the normal French way. I added, ‘Bonjour, madame. Nous sommes désolés de vous déranger.’ Good day, Madam. We are sorry to bother you.

  ‘Bonjour,’ she replied. ‘We can speak English if you like.’ Our hostess was dressed in a fine pink and black cross-hatched Chanel suit. Her black hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail which rested just above her shoulders. She was thin and vaguely glamorous. She wore black stockings which ended abruptly and remarkably in rubber boots. The chatelaine let us into a grand, panelled entrance hall. A vast and handsome staircase of oak rose to our left. Two large and comely salons, or sitting rooms, broke off to the right. We could see an immense fire burning in a monumental tuffeau fireplace.

  ‘You will see here a beautiful staircase. You like, non?’

  ‘Yes, very beautiful,’ Bud answered.

  ‘And here you will see a parquet floor in perfect condition. It is nice, non?’

  We ambled through the hall and into the first salon with similar comments and affirmations all attesting to the worth and beauty of the chateau. We came to a stunning dining room with an oak-sculpted buffet that smartly serve
d the eating area and the kitchen at the same time. A Renaissance reproduction, the buffet was covered with carved heads of nobles and peasants alike with hidden drawers to stash utensils and other sundries. A great breakfast room for our hoped-for guests.

  Again, ‘Splendid, non?’

  ‘Yes, very impressive.’ And so on for 15 or more rooms.

  Finally the attic with large oak beams supporting a heavy but well-maintained slate roof.

  ‘This is charpente. In good condition. Do you like?’

  At this point, I noticed something odd in our chatelaine’s countenance. As we all looked up at the massive vaulted wood beams protecting this bourgeois jewel, I stole a glance at her noble Gallic nose which started out wide and came to a very precise, decisive point. Our gracious hostess enquired several more times as to the pleasantness of her house, and each time her left eye twitched almost imperceptibly. Her mouth was fitted tightly around clenched teeth.

  I would like to think it wasn’t because of our bearing or lack of nobility. Her body, her mouth, her teeth spoke clearly: regret and hesitation. We could see it in her eyes – she needed to sell the house badly. The whole dance was surpassingly uncomfortable. Normally, the agent shows you around while the owner sits discreetly in another room patiently awaiting the verdict. It’s tough for today’s aristocrats, who hang on to the family dowry by fingernails and ingenuity until, one day, the luck just runs out. It is a story we had encountered several times before but never so poignantly as on this day.

  Of course, we did feel stabs of guilt as we visited, inspected and, in some way, transgressed the private spaces of this faded noble. We couldn’t help feel the common pang of loss as she displayed the family patrimony. Perhaps the sadness of the transaction could be softened by a fresh flow of greatly needed cash.

  The grounds were well sculpted in a modified French Baroque style. Every hedge and flower was well tended, and small topiaries sat here and there forming gentle patterns on a vast stone terrace. To the rear of the house, small limestone hills rose up to a couple of dozen metres, topped with spindly, anaemic trees. In ages past, men had carved enormous caves into the tuffeau hillside. To this day, Frenchmen live in these caves, where they store wine and grow mushrooms. This chateau’s cave meandered back into the hill, disappearing into darkness. There were many rooms fashioned out of this ubiquitous stone, some smooth, some rough and pockmarked.

  ‘So, Bud, what do you think?’ I asked as Bud fed Blue on a worn green bench at the foot of a cave.

  ‘It is perfect. Except for one thing. Did you see that road? It’s very busy.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s far enough to be safe. Non?’ Philippe offered hopefully.

  ‘I just fear for the cats. I think it’s too close.’ Ah yes, the cats. The real reason for moving to the countryside. Bud had rescued each and every cat from daily peril and certain death on the mean streets of New York. Her charge and moral responsibility in life was to care for these abandoned strays.

  Alas, the house sat on a hill overlooking a minor but busy road. Normally a selling point for a B&B in the Loire Valley, this road posed a problem for my wife and her 15 cats. I argued that the property was certainly a step up from the one-bedroom, 600-square-foot apartment in New York which we currently called home. The only apparent plus of the apartment was its cheapness, rent-controlled under some ancient New York socialist scheme. (And the jokes were sometimes funny too, spilling every weekend, and some week nights, from the comedy club Dangerfield’s beneath us.) The relatively modest rent had allowed us to save for the big chateau in the sky.

  The cats could enjoy the freedom of the back of the house, I argued, to no avail.

  ‘It’s just too close. We’ll have to look elsewhere.’

  Bud has many qualities but flexibility as regards the cats is not one of them. She is usually extraordinary in her tolerance for risk. What other wife would move husband and child to a foreign country with no safety net, only basic language skills and a smallish handful of money? Our financial livelihood and uncertain future in a faraway land caused little or no ruffle in this bird’s feathers. But the cats. That was another story. Bud wouldn’t be satisfied, so we made plans to meet Philippe again.

  Unlike the Irish agent, Philippe was refreshingly honest. When we asked for renovation cost estimates, he offered what seemed to be realistic quotes and suggestions for how one might do the work. He pointed out defects and directed our attention to future concerns. At first I thought Philippe was up to something. Why would he be so forthcoming? It appears this is the way of agents in France. What a wonderful tonic in a property world sometimes infested with cunning.

  The next day, Philippe ambled through the same café door and sat in our small booth with a handful of tattered papers. We all ordered cafés and prepared to discuss the week’s progress. The locals eyed us as they drank preprandial cocktails in preparation for lunch. It was mid-morning after all. One fellow in blue overalls and worn, thick black boots slopped with manure uttered a few words as we prattled on. I heard ‘anglais’ and ‘acheter’, ‘maisons’, and ‘tout’. It seems we, the English, were buying all the properties to be had in this small corner of the world.

  ‘What did you think of the chateau yesterday?’ Philippe asked hopefully.

  ‘Well, it’s a little close to the road and a bit noisy,’ I answered.

  ‘But it is a beau chateau, non?’ ‘Yes, very much so, but we have fifteen cats who need a safe place to live,’ Bud said.

  In an argument we had heard before, Philippe naively suggested, ‘But we have many cats in France. Can you take some of these? Ones that can live near a road?’

  Just a week earlier, Bud’s mother had said the same thing. Why fly 15 cats from the States since there are plenty of cats in France? Logical, but slightly missing the point. Undaunted, Philippe showed us a few other houses from his stack. None appealed in a way that would push us to assume a potentially crushing debt. A bit exasperated, Philippe pulled out a postcard.

  ‘Well, there is this one. Very nice and large but needs a lot of renovation.’

  My eyes widened. I managed to blurt out in an uncontrolled spasm, ‘Now, that’s more like it!’

  Looking back, one could finish the sentence by, ‘Now, that’s more like it… if you had no sense, a longing for stress and a Napoleonic complex.’

  The postcard was an aerial shot of an immensely handsome, gargantuan structure vaguely in the Louis XIII style. This is to say, it had a central structure with two arms, two wings actually, in the shape of a large ‘U’. Surrounded by trees and a captivating little garden folly in the back, the chateau looked like a place that just might draw people to the middle of nowhere. And the windows. Fifteen bays. As a long-time amateur of the grand old country house, I had made it a habit to count the number of bays as a measure of the greatness of the estate.

  ‘You see here in the ‘fiche technique’ that it is large, as you like. The facade is fifty metres long with a great hall, as you say in English, of forty metres.’

  ‘Sam, that’s much too big.’ Bud knew well my tendency to bite off more than I could chew. Undeterred, I eagerly read every word in the particulars of this latest wonder. The size, the sheer grandeur of the place made my heart beat at an excited pace. A 50-metre facade. That’s only a bit less than a full city block in Manhattan. More than half an American football field. Or almost half a standard football pitch. The house was composed of more than thirty rooms totalling about 15,000 square feet.

  ‘Bud, the place is perfect for the B&B. Listen, you can have a chateau like this with 15,000 square feet, that could hold 15 to 20 one- or two-bedroom apartments in the same building, for the same price as a one-bedroom apartment – you’re telling me it’s not worth a visit?’ I was shaking.

  Bud was nonplussed. ‘Sure, we can take a look, but I’m telling you it’s too big.’ I was convinced with absolute certitude that she was wrong, but for now my eyes sat like saucers on my awestruck face.

  A re
al lightning bolt, as the French would say. Stunning. The price, 3.5 million francs (this was pre-euro), or approximately £360,000. I practically grabbed poor Philippe by the collar and dragged him to the car.

  Bud said simply, ‘It’s really too big.’

  It was now 11 a.m. Our flight was set to leave at 6.30 p.m. from Paris, three hours’ drive from the chateau. One last visit before our return to the Big Apple. We set off on our hour-and-a-half journey to the Château du Bonchamps. Feeling the giddy pressure of an imminent sale, Philippe phoned his partner, Laurent. They would drive up together and give us directions. We would all meet at the castle sometime after noon.

  We arrived in the small, somewhat tired village known as Châteauneuf-sur-Sarthe, with its handsome bridge across the river. It was modern but constructed in a medieval, Romanesque style complete with wide Roman arches and wrought-iron railings. To the right of the town, we could see the spire of a Romanesque church poking up above the new-build bungalows and nineteenth-century ‘maisons bourgeoises’. Just over the river, someone had had the audacity to plonk a 1960s motel complete with neon sign and brown shingles.

  It appeared to be a small town, worn around the edges. Most of the shops were closed, forever, save a bank, a couple of insurance offices and a glasses shop. The French have extraordinarily good taste in eyewear.

  Our baby girl Blue was upset. We had dragged her all the way across the Atlantic to Ireland, then France and now to yet another house. Her crying was unnerving and the rain didn’t help. If we had wanted rain like this, rain that fell sideways, we would have stayed in Ireland.