LA ROCHE HUESo, we were back at the Hotel, still buzzing. All sorts of questions popped into our minds-- Could we afford the renovation? Would a bank take us on? Would it generate enough income?How would we do the work? Our idea was to turn the first and second floors of bedrooms and large rooms into self-catering appartments each one with a kitchen bedooms and bathrooms. But given the layout of the chateau that wasn't going to be easy, plus the fact that was- we had never attempted anything like that in our entire life! Previously we had worked in London and then bought and ran a caravan park. Renovation was not our metier. The total floor area of the chateau was 3000 sq.metres- the mind boggled! That was our first ( of many) sleepless nights.
The next day dawned bright and clear and so we pushed La Roche Hue to the back of our minds and looked forward to seeing the other chateaux. Unfortunately, there is not a lot about the rest of that week that I can relate here, because I had already fallen in love with the first one and all the others paled in comparison, and I don't remember them in detail. We looked in the Dordogne area at a moated chateau, one in the Auvergne and others further south. They didn't have the potential, they were ( of course) all smaller, less beautiful, either not in the right situation, or would just not be suitable for the type of conversion that we had in mind. So the rest of that week is just a blur in my mind and I cannot find any photos to post up for you. It all felt like an anti-climax.
The three of us arrived back in England absolutely exhausted. We needed to take a step back and collect our thoughts, which were still running away with us. A good night's sleep was needed and we thought we would awake the next morning realising how stupid we were to even think about taking on such a huge project!! Well - THAT didn't work! By 10am the next morning we were on the phone to the London agent and made him an offer of £160 000! When we told him that it was for Roche Hue he said " Why are you buying that old Victorian pile ?" I asked him if he had ever visited it and he replied no, but he had sent his young lady assisant. She had obviously thought it was dreadful ( obviously she wasn't into chateaux) --how wrong could she have been!
However, they did turn down our offer! We made a final offer of £190 000 which accepted!!! "OH MY GOODNESS " I thought what have we done?..................................
I feel excited just reading this, like it was me who made that huge decision. What a gorgeous gorgeous photo....ahhhh I'm traveling off now into my imagination. Can't wait to hear more.
ReplyDeleteOh, my! I'm going to have to sit down and read ALL your posts! WOW! So different from my world, the deserts of Southern California!!! To get the music, you have to go to something like Playlist.com and set up an account, then select the music you want. THEN, you have to post it (go to "get the code" after you are all done" AND paste that in the HTML portion of your blog. It's pretty easy! Everything I've done on my blog, I've learned to do by myself! Just email me if you want some help! You have a beautiful blog and I can't wait to sit down and read it!
ReplyDelete~~Cheryl Ann~~ (owner of 7 blogs!)
You know Sandy, I am as just as excited as I was all thos years ago, just writing it all down; Memories huh?
ReplyDeleteThankyou Cheryl Ann for taking time to drop in and I hope you enjoy my story so far. I just wish I had enough photos to cover the events I remember. We took hours and hours of video at that time, they are still in great condition;
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