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Castles With Too Much Overhead
Chantal de Bonneval and her husband toiled for almost 30 years to keep their 45-room chateau in Thaumiers, but this year decided to sell.
(Photos By John Ward Anderson -- The Washington Post)
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Back at the Chateau de Boucard, about 100 miles south of Paris in the rural Sancerre wine region, the resident family has considered many options but remains torn about what to do.
The lady of the castle, de Montabert, said selling it was "out of the question." Her son, who is to inherit the chateau, is a veterinarian and could not afford the upkeep, even if he wanted the building, which he doesn't, his mother said. And her two daughters would split the 750 acres surrounding the chateau, depriving it of its income.
Part of the 20-room chateau has been abandoned, part has been restored and is open to the public, and part is used by the family. Because the chateau is a historic monument, the government picks up a portion of the cost of maintenance, but the sheer magnitude of what needs to be done is daunting, according to elder daughter Edwige Mortier.
As for selling the castle when her mother dies, Mortier said: "It's not worth anything. You always need to have work done, and people don't want it." She estimated the chateau could fetch perhaps $500,000.
"I don't see a very bright future," her mother conceded while walking around the chateau's stone courtyard.
A frieze in the center of one wing, built by an exiled military leader who made the chateau his home in the mid-1500s, declares, "Patience wins over destiny."
"It could be a message," de Montabert said. "He must have been thinking of me when he wrote it."
Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.
