It has 11 bedrooms and greater than dozen loos, a garden so massive it takes a day and a half to mow and 800 window panes to wash – 1600 in case you rely each side.
Aussie Suzie Jackson, 60, dreamed about shopping for and renovating a dilapidated outdated French mansion – nearly actually.
While Jackson and her husband had been seeking to purchase an residence in Paris about ten years in the past, nothing had been fairly proper.
Until she went to mattress one night time and had a brainwave.
“I literally had one of those two o’clock in the morning, I don’t know, what do you call it?” she informed 9.com.au.
“(I thought) ‘Why don’t we buy a chateau that’s not too far from Paris?'”
“So I woke up my husband and said ‘I’ve had this idea’ and he said ‘great idea’ and probably just wanted to go back to sleep.
“But the thought of shopping for a chateau was hatched.”
Chateau ten times bigger than an Aussie apartment
With a job running her own financial planning business, which she has now retired from, Jackson was able to spend time away from home in Melbourne looking for a chateau, which is essentially a grand house in the French countryside.
Originally owned by noble families and passed down generations, many have been abandoned for years and are up for grabs for anybody who wants to buy them.
The search was narrowed to the Loire Valley, and after ruling out dozens of options, Jackson recalls motoring up the driveway to see yet another.
She said she knew immediately this crumbling mansion was special.
But once the couple actually bought Chateau de la Carriere near Laval, an hour and 15 minutes by train from Paris in 2014, any romantic notions went out the window.
It wasn’t just issues like dampness, which was worse than they thought, but also the sheer size and scale of the place, which is about 1000 square metres.
A typical two-bed city apartment in Australia would likely be less than a tenth of that size.
The original chateau was inherited by a noble Irish family in the early 1800s.
Rebuilt in 1838, the current home has 35 rooms, not including 11 bathrooms in the main house or the fairytale turrets.
Then there are multiple outbuildings and a huge attic.
While it was livable, it needed an overhaul after being empty for years.
‘Completely bonkers’ move
Of course, while buying a chateau might seem “low cost”, the renovation bills mustn’t be underestimated, Jackson said.
“You should purchase a cute little ‘petit chateau’ for a few hundred thousand euro and also you assume ‘wow,” she said.
“But it will price you that very same quantity once more in works.
“It’s not just the fact also it’s an old building. It’s also the fact that it’s big.
“When you go purchase paint, for instance, you are not simply going and shopping for a few tins, you are shopping for a pallet.”
Jackson managed the project using local tradespeople.
That’s despite only speaking what she describes as ”vacationer French”.
“I mentioned to myself, ‘I’m not gonna let it stress me the truth that I do not communicate French’, which is a very bonkers factor to say,” she said.
And any language barrier-related mishaps were luckily headed off.
“I keep in mind with the cleaner, writing down all of the phrases in English after which placing the French equal,” she said.
“I believed I may level to the phrases.
“I showed the cleaning company manager.
“He mentioned, ‘I have to inform you, you are about to ask your cleaner to mud the home with sugar.'”
She’d in fact used the words which explained not that she wanted the cleaner to dust the house, but to explain she wanted her to dust it with sugar – like you would a cake.
But Jackson said plying the tradies with food – she has a background in restaurants and loves to cook – helped ease the pressure.
Along with the Aussie charm.
“The French love Aussies,” she said.
“You get requested questions like, ‘How many occasions every week do the kangaroos ship the mail?’ And ‘are there crocodiles wandering up the road?'” she said.
After eight years, the revamp, including a re-design of the vast two-acre garden by Aussie designer Paul Bangay, is finished.
Aussies can sample chateau life
While Jackson opened the chateau to guests pre-COVID, she’s planning to start taking bookings again for people to stay this year.
A night starts at $425, including breakfast.
Jackson is even toying with the idea of starting a “chateau faculty” for others who scroll the internet dreaming of snapping up a French country pile.
She’ll ensure they have no delusions about the running costs, especially in the winter.
“It’s costing €2500 ($3900) a month to run our heating, and we have it on the bottom setting potential,” she said.
But she admits chateau life – which now comes with a cocker spaniel, five cats and chickens – is largely the fantasy she imagined.
“It’s bought a gorgeous vitality and you’re feeling a bit such as you simply come right into a bubble,” she said.
How to buy a French chateau
Jackson is just one Aussies to call a French chateau home.
However, while he said the days of super cheap bargains are over, a chateau can be had from around $780,000 (E500,0000).
In comparison, the average house price in Sydney is $1,464,371.
However, getting a mortgage could be very difficult.
One option he’s currently selling is a partly restored seven-bedroom chateau in The Tarn in the nation’s south, with eight fireplaces and room for two horses for just over a million dollars.
He advised potential chateau buyers to consider the age and condition of the property plus the size of the land – and check the state of the sanitation, roof and boiler.
“Generally talking, the cheaper the chateau, the costlier the renovation prices and the longer it is going to take to begin producing revenue,” he said.
He also advised that while France is much smaller than Australia it’s not always easy to get around, and buyers should consider the areas.
Australians also need to consider visa options.
Visits of 90 days are allowed without a visa, but starting a business or staying longer requires a visa.
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