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| Best Practices: Property |
Château Ambitions
Bryant Urstadt
11/01/2004
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A partner at a wall street investment bank purchased a château in Provence in
the summer of 2000, a year after first laying eyes on it. “I absolutely fell in
love with the home, with the region, with the whole French lifestyle,” he says.
It was an easy place to fall in love with. The château, erected in the 18th
century, is listed on the French register of historic places. Built of a
gold-colored stone from nearby Avignon, it has pale-blue shutters flanking tall
windows. The château is set on 17 acres of wooded parkland surrounded by formal
gardens, a moat filled with Japanese carp and a variety of orchards, including
apple, pear, quince, plum and nectarine trees. Visitors approach through a
wrought iron gate, down a magnificent lane of mature trees. Inside, in 8,500
square feet of living space, there are nine guest bedrooms and a wine cellar
with bottles of almost every vintage from 1910 through the present. There is a
full-time staff of four, including a chef who can cook well enough to live up to
those wines, and who draws many of his raw ingredients—including olives and
poultry—from the farm.
TOP VIEW
A château in the French countryside can furnish an idyllic retreat from the stresses of modern life. When mulling over a purchase, we should decide whether
we want:
• A property that is listed as a historic site;
• To
maintain a business, usually a vineyard, on the property;
• To defray
costs by renting the château out for events when we are elsewhere;
• To
establish residency (and therefore be subject to French income tax). |
When the owner, an Englishman based in Asia, hinted
he might be selling, the banker jumped at the chance to own a piece of such a
property, and convinced him to take on a partner instead. “I didn’t have the
time to run it myself, but I didn’t want to lose it either. I told him we
absolutely had to work something out, and we did,” he says. The banker now
spends a few weeks at his château at the end of every summer, and pops over when
he can get away from his high-pressure job. The château is 20 minutes from the
airport in Avignon, which makes a visit over a long weekend workable by either
commercial or private plane. His room is always ready, and there are spare
clothes in the drawer. “It feels like home,” he says.
The dream of owning a
château in France is intoxicating to many—the stuff of romantic novels, coffee
table books, even lavish period films—and the reasons for buying a château are
as various as the buyers. Some are looking to move to France. Jean-Pierre
Orhant, who has been brokering luxury property in France for 20 years, recently
found a château for a well-known American musician. “When I asked him why he
wanted to move to France,” says Orhant, “his first answer was, ‘From time to
time I like to eat really good tomatoes.’” Tomatoes aside, he also wanted to
raise his children abroad, in a culture which matched his personal values, and
in a home with some privacy. He paid about $1 million for a château, and his
former residence in California is now his second home.
Château Ideal
No matter what the motivation, the process of moving from
dream to reality is easier if we have a clear idea of what we want. The prepared
purchaser has already answered a number of important questions: What exactly do
we mean by “château”? Will we run the château as a business (say, a vineyard) or
use it solely as a home? Which region suits our goals? It is useful, as well, to
understand the peculiar legal and financial exigencies of owning a true piece of
history.
 “Château” is a broad word to a French real estate agent,
encompassing everything from a squat medieval castle set within a city or
village, with slits for windows and walls of stone 6-feet thick, to a manor
house that would not look out of place in Greenwich, Conn., to a vineyard with a
modest and hardly regal residence attached. What Americans usually consider a
typical château will usually include a fair-size plot of tended land with
gardens, though what remains may be just a portion of the original holdings.
Most were built between the late 17th century, when family homes no longer
needed to be fortified, and the end of the 19th century.
Another aspect to
consider is whether or not to purchase a listed property, one which is on the
French register of historic places. Listed properties command a premium, but
restrictions on renovations are tight, and maintenance standards are strict. It
may happen that only part of a château might be listed, just the roof, for
example, or perhaps only the stables. Owning a partially or fully listed
property has advantages in intangible aspects: Most are historically
significant, and many have played some role in French history.
Whether to
run the château as a business or keep it solely as a home is an important
question. The château with the high-end vineyard, for instance, may be a dream
of many, but having a large-scale agricultural operation on the property can
certainly change its feel. Orhant has a line on a vineyard in Bordeaux, a Grand
Cru label in St. Emilion, offered for $10 million. “There’s prestige in owning a
place like that, and it can make business sense, but it’s not going to be fun if
you’re not absolutely crazy about wine.” The value of the vineyard will likely
be greater than that of the home. However, to prospective owners who are crazy
about wine, the vineyard may resemble their ideal of heaven.
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