A New York couple persuaded their family to sell their US home and spend $2.6 million to buy a crumbling French chateau, but now it’s plagued by structural problems and costly renovations that mean they’re struggling to make their dream a reality.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Julia Leach (33) and her fiancée Caroline Ibarra (37), along with Leach’s parents, purchased the 750-year-old chateau in the Charente, 90 minutes northeast of Bordeaux, in early 2021 and hope to turn it into a full-fledged hospitality business.
But two years after launching their Lady of the Chateau business, the couple say they are being hampered by the enormous costs of renovating the sprawling 14,000-square-foot space.
The cost of repairing and restoring the building has ballooned to nearly three times the projected $1 million budget.
To make matters worse, they risk being deported when their visas expire if they cannot prove they will be earning at least France’s minimum wage, about $46,800, within the next two years.
The couple’s dream of living in a French country chateau hit a snag soon after they decided to move out of their Brooklyn apartment, give up careers as a camera assistant in TV and film, and start a YouTube channel documenting their renovation process.
They soon found themselves plagued by a host of problems that come with a castle-like building, including structural issues, water leaks, sewage back-ups, electrical problems and even minor earthquakes.
At one point, the couple was seen scooping sanitary napkins “up to their knees” from a clogged septic tank and working to remove animal carcasses from the infrastructure.
The couple also didn’t know when they bought the chateau that it was a designated historical monument, meaning that architects would have to get government permission to make any structural changes to the building.
Mr Leach’s family, including his parents and sister, all relocated for the venture, had planned to invest heavily in the property.
But the cost ballooned to nearly $3 million.
“It’s just becoming completely unaffordable,” Leach recalled of his original thinking, adding that the expense has caused him to completely rethink renovation plans that he had initially put aside for two years.
Leach’s parents sold their “French Provencal-style” home in La Jolla, California, to pay for the chateau and invest in the business.
Leach said the chateau’s gardeners and cleaners, some of whom had worked there for decades, realised early on that the couple were serious about restoring the chateau and weren’t just there to “drink champagne in bed”.
“It was an overwhelming sense of responsibility and panic,” she said of her first months at the chateau.
Despite a number of renovations and structural issues, the family remains committed to keeping their business plans afloat.
It initially opened as a bed and breakfast but then shifted its focus to “immersive retreats” to make more money.
“I think what we’re doing is very American in a lot of ways,” Ibarra said.
