Juneau - A Chateau of Ones Own: Restoration Misadventures In France

W e are sitting quietly behind a vast and elegant seventeenth-century chateau. We have just poured the last of many glasses of a rich, not overly sophisticated, Loire Valley red wine. There is half-melted bleu dAuvergne cheese curling over the edge of a yellow plate. Laid casually within arms reach is the manna of the local boulangerie .

The chateau spreads out behind us in stately languor, dominating all around it. It is 10.30 p.m. and the sun only now decides to drift down, sprawling tendrils of light into the forest just beyond. The men have been working on the property for the better part of the day. The gardener brings the richest bounty of tomatoes we have ever dared to desire. The beekeeper unloads a few jars of honey taken from fastidious and well-fed bees in the woods. These are our neighbours. This is our chateau.

The Chteau du Bonchamps resides in all its grandeur in the broad, never-ending river valley of the Loire. It is the seat of noble and almost-noble families going back to 1507. There have been six owners since this time. We are the sixth. Most of our predecessors have served as minor vassals of the Plantagenet dynasty of Anjou. Yes, those Plantagenets, that dysfunctional, ruthless ruling clan made famous by Peter OToole and Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter , the kings with big appetites and a fondness for ruling Britain and France. We are comforted by the fact that Richard the Lionheart and Eleanor of Aquitaine are buried nearby. The climate is mild, the summers long, the days even longer. We do not serve the Plantagenets. Just the bank.

We have always loved the country house. We have hungrily devoured countless hours of period dramas where the house is often the primary and most interesting character. How many times have we wanted to meet Darcy and the other characters from Pride and Prejudice just to spend time at their splendid country houses? How many times have we soaked up the immensity of Brideshead s Castle Howard? So, here we are. Delighted and sometimes crushed by the getting of what we asked for. Here we are, drinking wine alongside a half-millennium-old forest, behind a massive castle that some visitors have too generously likened to Versailles. Chteau du Bonchamps was meant to be our salvation.

Like the violent scratch of a needle across an old record, a guest hurries down, out of breath and red-faced. Our reverie pauses.

Im afraid there is a leak in our room. I think it is coming from the bathroom above, the rattled Dutchman explains.

Let me take a look, I say.

Ive heard it before. I am sure I will hear it again. The thing about the chateau is only emergencies are dealt with. And there are infinite circumstances that can set off an emergency, especially in the summer, when our home turns into a bed and breakfast and guests roam the grounds while the building plots its next incident. The chateau has surely seen many changes over its lifetime. I think it is safe to say Richard and his lions did not have to run a guest house.

We pad quickly up to the Poplar Room. All the rooms are named after trees on the property. A bit quaint but appropriate. The chateau is embraced by thousands of exquisite trees of all shapes and sizes, young and old. The most spectacular array is a set of twenty-odd sequoia trees in the shape of a V. To enter the grove is to enter natures cathedral. The thick, bulky, tremendous waists of these giants stretch skyward in endless arcs.

I accompany the Dutchman into his bathroom and there is in fact a leak from above. Drip, drip, dripping onto polished marble floors.

Hold on. I will check upstairs.

Thats good. But please know, it is not a problem for us. We love your house. I just thought you should know, he kindly offers.

I run up another flight of stairs and burst into the bathroom in the Oak Suite. I was sure the friendly English family there had left for the day. Evidently not. There, in all her splendid womanness, is an early thirty-something mother and her three-year-old child, both as nude as the day they were born. They are in the bathtub doing what people do on holiday; namely, lounging in the bath. The toddler is throwing water everywhere. The ceiling is not exempt from the sweet things earnest attempts to express herself.

I am so, so sorry. Please excuse me. There was a leak, I explain sounding like a 15-year-old in the first throes of puberty. I stare briefly, unable to help myself. I recover and step out of the bathroom, red-faced and stammering again, There was a leak.