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| Best Practices: Property |
Throne, Sweet Throne
Bryant Urstadt
01/01/2005
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Manfred Mehlhop’s castle is his home. He lives in a 14th-century tower built on a foundation dating back to the Roman Empire. The former seat of a line of barons, the castle is steeped in history—and stone: The walls are three feet thick. “If the heat goes out, I don’t notice for at least three days,” jokes Mehlhop, whose medieval fortress is in the German town of Konigsfeld, near the Black Forest.
 | | THE CHâTEAU de Theyrargues dates back to 1150. |
Like many owners and would-be owners of castles, Mehlhop grew up dreaming about life behind the ramparts. His fantasies sprang from the usual romantic notions, tempered by experience: His family owned two castles already. His uncle owned a castle in Austria, the former home of the wife of the Emperor Franz-Joseph. A great-uncle owned a castle in Germany, known as Schloss Schweinfurt. Mehlhop hoped to inherit at least one. “But fate was against me,” he sighs. Instead, Mehlhop had to settle for purchasing his own and for a lifetime’s work around these bastions of medieval civilization, as a broker for and consultant on historic buildings (www.mehi.de).
Alexander Kraft, the regional manager for Sotheby’s International Realty in Europe, says that most of his castle-buying clients are, like Mehlhop, fulfilling a lifelong dream. And who has not imagined pulling up the drawbridge and slamming down the portcullis on the world’s problems?
Buying a castle in Europe is only partly a matter of finances. “Compared to American real estate, European castles are just cheap,” says Peter Mittig, who represents a number of castles for Anciennes Demeures, a French firm specializing in antique buildings in the south of France. “For $5 million in Palm Beach, you can get a starter home. For $5 million in Europe, you’re looking at some of the top properties.”
Mittig is currently representing the Château de Theyrargues. Dating to 1150, the castle is about 30 miles outside Nimes, just 50 miles from the Mediterranean coast. It overlooks the river Cèze, and has views that stretch for miles. The fully renovated edifice has 15 bedrooms, and it is on the market for about $6 million. Included with the property is the title Viscount de Theyrargues, which no one can get in Palm Beach, no matter how much he pays. On the other end of the scale, castles have been selling in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe for as little as a token euro, with the caveat that the new owner be willing to undertake massive, multimillion-dollar renovations. Viglas Castle in Slovakia, for example, in the town of Zvolenska Slatina, is currently available for a single koruna.
More requisite than monetary assets, however, at least from the point of view of the prospective castle dweller, is dedication, a lively interest in history and a readiness to embrace the peculiarities of living in a structure designed to repel an angry army.TOP VIEW
Many have fantasized about owning a fortified redoubt of stone and oak. And while fine examples of European fortresses can be obtained for surprisingly little money, buyers must be on guard. Retrofitting, maintenance and renovation costs can far outstrip the purchase price, while government bureaucracy can lay siege to our reconstruction plans. |
Palatial Primer
European brokers queried about castles are likely to show clients what North Americans consider a château or palace, including many decorative, rather than protective, structures. Sotheby’s, for example, is offering a number of “castles” that appear unable to repel a mailman, much less an army. If the object of desire is a real castle—a fortress designed to weather the violent chaos of the Middle Ages—then specifying that we are looking for a medieval, fortified structure, or a building based on the remains of one, will winnow out many of the civilized pretenders.
Castles, like other types of real estate, have their own jargon, and it may help the prospective buyer to be familiar with a few common terms. After all, it is part of the fun. Who would not want to point out to guests the difference, sometimes subtle, between a garderobe—a castle’s privy, often no more than a hole in a stone seat, and frequently situated to the detriment of anyone storming the castle walls—and a murder hole, a similarly sized opening, usually over an entrance, and just large enough for the discharge of a head-size stone?
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