Perth couple restoring a beautiful French Château

Perth couple restoring a beautiful French Château

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'It started off as a pipe dream - to buy a French farmhouse and holiday home for their family of four to spend the summers in.

Now, nearly four years later, Karina and Craig Waters, from Perth in Western Australia, are the proud owners and chief restorers of the sprawling Château de Gudanes in Verdun, in the south of France, which the purchased for an estimated £280,000.

The couple have spent the past four years renovating the level one historical monument - which dates from the reign of King Louis XV - learning its secrets and slowly re-building their dream property.





Later this year, the couple are set to open the Château as a working hotel for visitors. Mr and Mrs Waters will also release a book about their journey in 2018, but they admit that fully restoring the property to its former glory will be a 'lifelong commitment'.



'Our property search in France began when our daughter, Jasmine, spent a month in France while she was in school,' Karina Waters told Daily Mail Australia.

'Craig was tracking Jasmine's every move on the computer, and so advertisements for French real estate began to pop up as suggestions for him to look at.

'We stumbled upon a French property blog, which enticed us with photos of French farmhouses in picturesque rural villages. Before we knew it, we were hooked on French real estate websites and the promise of another life.

'We found Château de Gudanes on the Internet just a few days before we left, and decided to include it on our viewing itinerary.'

The rest, as they say, was history.

Since the couple made the purchase in 2013, restoring and attaining the Château has been a lengthy and involved process.



Buying an almost ruined Château which was classified as a level one historical monument in a country where we didn't even speak the language was always going to be challenging,' Ms Waters laughed.

Remarkably, the historic Château, which overlooks the Midi-Pyrénées, had never been outfitted with heat or electricity prior to their ownership.

'To add to that, we had very little exposure or background in architecture, restoration or old buildings. When we put in the offer, we had in fact only seen four of the 94 rooms (most were inaccessible because there were no ceilings or floors). Trees were growing inside and on the roof!'.



However, undeterred, the ambitious pair set to work and began to update the crumbling building.

To conduct any work at all - even the smallest of details - they had to apply and receive permission from the Historic Monuments of France.

'In the first phase, our builders re-installed all the walls, ceilings and floors that had collapsed. Prior to that, they had to remove the 500 tonnes of rubble from inside,' Ms Waters said.

Next, they had to apply again to the Historic Monuments to make more changes.

'It usually takes several years before anything else can go ahead,' Ms Waters explained. 'In the meantime, we have been doing smaller tasks, and also continuing to reinstall things like tiling.

'Last year, we also milled the trees which had fallen in the Château park, and our local artisan helper, David, used the wood to create two massive Medieval-inspired tables.'

It's been an in-depth job so far - Ms Waters confessed they've put in as many hours 'as humanly possible', but she added: 'Every day counts towards building a dream, and a sustainable future for the Château'.



With regards to their highlights during their epic Château restoration so far, Ms Waters said there have been many.

'We have discovered some very interesting "finds" at the Château along the journey. The Château has revealed her history to us slowly.

'One example from when we first started occurred when the builders found a hole in the ground. After they started excavating it, they figured that it goes at least six metres underneath the ground.

'We think it may have been an escape tunnel to the local village. There is even a boarded up doorway on the walls around the Château grounds leading there.'

Other incredible finds from the past four years include bone, ceramics, a fresco painting and Venetian glassware.



The Château already has thousands of fans - 230,000 people follow the project on Instagram, while countless more check into the Waters' website for updates about events coming up.

'The Château is a keeper of memories, and whatever we endeavour to do in the future will be about passing on and sharing these memories, and the past itself,' Ms Waters said.

'As the restoration journey progresses it becomes clearer to us each day that we need to learn to slowly adapt ourselves to the Château, rather than forcibly demand her to adapt to us.'

While this has meant living without the facilities they had been accustomed to in the past at times, Ms Waters said the couple are fine with that.

'Life does not move fast here, and there is a definite serenity in being disconnected from the rush of the rest of the world.