Ditching the hustle and bustle for a slower-paced existence in the peaceful seclusion of a French chateau might sound like the stuff of dreams – until the renovations get started.
Indeed, the living situation is so pined after that Channel 4 managed to pull off nine series of Escape to the Chateau, following British couples as they harnessed their resourcefulness and grit to restore a chateau to its former glory.
And while it might make for good entertainment, embarking on the challenge without the glamour of cameras might just leave owners looking for an escape from their chateau.
At least that’s the case for various couples who took the plunge and were left scrambling to overcome crippling costs, planning rows, and, in one case, a fire with no known cause.
The latter saw Dimitri, 35, and David Petitpas, 28, dream of hosting their wedding in their £285,763 French manor go up in flames after it was severely damaged by a devastating fire – and repairs could cost up to £1.1 million.
Elsewhere, the French chateau dream has quite literally lost all its charm after being converted into council flats with timber-cladding box roofs.
Here, the Daily Mail reveals French chateau renovation projects that ended in nightmarish consequences.
Renovation challenges
London-born doctor Erin Choa and her French fiancé Jean-Baptiste Gois embarked on a property renovation of epic proportions after purchasing Château de Bourneau in Pays de la Loire for €680,000 (£585,000) in 2019
Hiding behind the back of the chateau is the only remaining turret of the original building that was built on the site in 1564 with permission of Louis XI, according to Erin. It was a fortified chateau surrounded by a moat which still exists to this day
A snap shared on Erin’s Instagram account (@theintrepidchatelaine) showed the extent of the renovations
A young couple who quit their jobs and poured their savings into a crumbling French chateau in 2019 revealed the trials and tribulations of renovating the property.
London-born doctor Erin Choa and her French fiancé Jean-Baptiste ‘JB’ Gois were on a mission to restore Château de Bourneau to its former glory after purchasing the sprawling castle for €680,000 (£585,000) in the summer of 2018.
When they first moved in, the Renaissance château in rural Vendée, Pays de la Loire, was falling apart following three decades of neglect with a leaky moat and rotting window frames – meaning the DIY-mad couple had their work cut out for them and often clocked up 14-hour days during the renovations.
Anaesthetist Erin and Jean-Baptiste, a mechanical engineer from Burgundy who she met in Edinburgh in 2010, are now making a living from hosting dinner parties and letting out their castle as holiday accommodation after acquiring the keys in July 2018.
The couple appeared inChannel 4’s Escape to the Chateau: DIY, which followed plucky Brits taking on the task of renovating and running their own fairytale chateaux dotted across the French countryside.
‘Set in 16 hectares of woodland and park, with its encircling moats and romantic turrets, we completely fell under its spell,’ Erin recalled.
But it was no easy feat – and as well as depleting their personal savings, the couple had to take out a bank loan and admitted buying the country pile was a ‘risky investment’.
‘We have concentrated on catching up with maintenance that has not been done here for the last 30 years,’ Erin told the Daily Mail in 2019.
‘There were drains that hadn’t been cleared, the moat had a tendency to [leak] into the cellars, many windows that had rotted, leaks in the roof and managing the woods and gardens.
‘It’s always a juggling act balancing the ongoing maintenance and pushing forward with the renovations.
‘The renovation is entirely financed by the income generated from our holiday cottage rentals and our events and weddings business.
She concluded: ‘It is a lifetime project for us so there is no final figure but we renovate little by little, as funds enable.’
Spiraling heating bills and freezing temperatures
Lionel and Claire Cherruault (pictured) paid £900,000 for the property, that comes with three acres of land, eight bedrooms and its very own chapel, back in 2021
Pictured: An aerial view of the couples £900,000 chateau in France
Lionel, who burned through £6,000 worth of fuel in three months to heat the chateau, is pictured carrying out some restoration work inside the chateau
A couple who bought a 20-room French chateau for the price of a London flat said spiraling energy costs turned their dream home into a Christmas nightmare.
Lionel and Claire Cherruault paid £900,000 for the property, that comes with three acres of land, eight bedrooms and its very own chapel, back in 2021.
And for the price of a flat in Chiswick, West London, the couple thought they had secured their very own fairytale mansion – that is until the winter of 2024.
But looks can be deceiving and each winter since they purchased the chateau, Lionel and Claire have been faced with huge energy bills to heat the freezing-cold rooms.
Former royal photographer Lionel said according to The Sun: ‘Winter is an absolute nightmare here and I’m constantly thinking I’ve had enough, let’s sell.’
The couple burned through £6,000 worth of fuel in just three months in the winter of 2023 and have vowed never to make the same mistake again.
So the following year, they had to endure the bone-chilling temperatures with Claire, a photographer from Plymouth, saying she is ‘always wearing a hat, even in bed’.
The pair have nevertheless been able to remain positive and have been experimenting with different forms of heating.
Claire said: ‘In the evenings we light the fire and cosy up on the sofa with a duvet and our two dogs and cats who make very good hot water bottles.’
However, it has not always been so successful. In the run-up to Christmas 2024, the couple bought six oil radiators to heat the mansion but ended up spending £500-a-month on electricity instead.
Bitter 15-year planning row
British producer Jon Acevski’s French dream turned into a nightmare after officials demolished the extension at his ultra-luxury 11th century chateau – and then sent him a £120,000 bill after bitter 15-year planning row
The state turned up to tear down the lavish extensions – and charged the owner for the work costs
It was once the exclusive haunt of royalty, foreign millionaires, film stars and – according to local mythology – a mysterious order of crusader knights. But by the 1990s, the 11th century Château de Saint Jeannet had fallen into disrepair.
A new lease of life was breathed in to the estate when, in 2001, the derelict castle was taken on by British film producer Jon Acevski, paying around €1.2 million for the site and investing far more in renovations – welcoming back the stars when Naomi Campbell chose it for her celebrity-packed 45th birthday party in 2015.
But the dream of preserving and expanding the three-and-a-half-hectare estate near Nice in the south of France became a nightmare when courts ordered the demolition of several extensions to conclude a gruelling 15-year legal battle.
After slapping Acevski with a €140,000 (£120,000) bill for the demolition work, authorities shared footage of how they tore down newer installations they claim were built without planning permission in the presence of the owners in March 2024.
The Château de Saint Jeannet – formerly the Château de la Gaude – has been razed and rebuilt many times through the ages. But after numerous complaints were brought against its latest occupants, the State roundly decreed that there are limits to how far owners can go to bring it back to life.
Boasting 13 suites, outdoor space to accommodate 600 guests, a helipad with room for two, a pool, a sauna and a Turkish bath, current owner Jon Acevski once said he could fetch as much as €135,000 a week to rent out the entire site before the 2008 global financial crisis.
The fortress, just 30 minutes from Cannes and the Monaco Grand Prix, had survived nearly a millennium through war, plague and recession – but was completely abandoned when Acevski took it on as a project.
‘It was not considered habitable when I bought it,’ Acevski told Variety in 2009, after he had renovated the 1,000m2 main property into a profitable holiday villa.
Enthralled by the task, he was ‘present almost every day’ and worked with a local architect to ‘calculate everything’ and ‘[choose] all the materials with great care’.
This included travelling to Portugal to choose the right stones for the castle and having a column of the central staircase redone over and over because a detail just was not quite right.
It took five years for Acevski to achieve his goal and continue the legacy of his predecessor, completing a task left on hold for more than forty years before he arrived.
‘My husband wanted a place that respected the history and landscape of this place,’ his wife Yasmin explained, years before the state threatened to tear down their additions.
But the extensions have caused trouble for Jon and Yasmin with local officials opposing his renovations. They contested he had no right to extend the caretaker’s lodge or to build next to the swimming pool, The Times reported.
In 2009, a court in Grasse slapped Acevski with fines worth €5 million and ordered the destruction of the outbuildings. He argued the case, but the lodge was ultimately knocked down in 2017.
In 2011, the owner was also handed a fine of €300,000 accompanied by orders to tear down various sites within the year, threatening late fees of €75 per day.
On top of the outhouse, these included a ‘living zone for workers’, two pergolas and a 65m-squared concrete terrace, according to local media.
The changes ‘should have taken place before November 29, 2012 but nothing has been done in recent years,’ Nice Matin reported in 2017.
That year, a 250m2 house located on the estate was targeted for a first demolition, according to Le Parisien. But it was far from the end.
‘The delays are long because many owners chain appeals and practice an avoidance strategy which does not pay off in the end,’ a representative said.
Seven years on, Acevski has received invoices for more demolition work totalling €140,000 – and in March 2024, saw diggers move in on a demolition order that had been ‘ignored until 20th February 2024, when the authorities took matters in hand and started pulling down the offending structures themselves’.
‘No matter how long it takes, we will complete these procedures, whatever happens, appeals are not a profitable strategy. Illegal constructions will be demolished,’ a state representative said, reported by Nice Matin.
Famed chateau becomes council flats
The Chateau du Tournepuits, in Guines near Calais, has been converted into an ‘eyesore’ block of council flats in France sparking fury among conservationists
Pictured: The 19th-century chateau, built in 1848 for powerful French landowner and politician Narcisse Boulanger, before the ‘renovation’
For some, the dream of living in a chateau was made possible after the 19th-century Chateau du Tournepuits in Guines near Calais was made into council flats earlier this year.
But instead of embracing the building’s original features, first put in place for French landowner and politician Narcisse Boulanger, the local council added a ‘monstrosity’ timber-cladding box roof.
Despite hopes of a renovation into a historic house among its neighbours, the chateau has been converted into nine council flats in a £2.4 million conversion and is now an ‘eyesore’, neighbours claim.
The ornate roof has been replaced with grey cladding, and a modern ‘extension’ has been built at the rear, so that the red-and-white brick chateau is encroached on by pale timber.
Critics call it a ‘grinding dissonance between the past and present’, and say it is proof of France’s inability to preserve its history, the Times reported.
It will serve as social housing and is divided into nine council flats, while the surrounding land, which used to be a park, has been levelled out into a bare plot.
Louvre curator Nicolas Milovanovic said: ‘The absolute ugliness on the pretext of a social and ecological project is enough to make you cry,’ while French economist Jean Messiha said: ‘It would have been better to tear it down – that would have been more honourable than erecting this eyesore.’
Renovation project goes up in flames
Dimitri and David Petitpas received the devastating call that their 200-year-old Egmont Manor (pictured), located near Cloyes-les-Trois-Rivières, suffered immense damage from a fire
The couple are waiting to hear back from their insurance company, but the repairs could cost more than £1.1million
The couple purchased the home as a DIY renovation project – and hope to host their wedding there
A couple’s DIY project, a French manor they snapped up for €330,000 (£285,763), was severely damaged by a devastating fire – and repairs could cost up to €1.3million (£1.1million).
Dimitri, 35, and David Petitpas, 28, purchased 200-year-old Egmont Manor, located near Cloyes-les-Trois-Rivières, around an hour from Paris, in September last year with grand plans to renovate the property.
The nine-bedroom French Chateau had no water, no electricity, and a leaky roof, but the couple started the renovations with hopes of using it for their wedding venue within ten months.
However, in November they received the call that their new home had caught fire and the roof was destroyed. It is unclear how the fire started.
Pictures show the burned pieces of the historic roof and attic, which had fallen through to the first floor, exposing the home to harsh winter weather.
The couple are insured and are waiting to hear how much of the repairs it will cover but have been told the work could cost upwards of £1million.
Dimitri said: ‘We have been told that we need 1.3million euros to rebuild the manor, which is way more than what we were planning.
‘We bought it to restore it, so we will restore it. It will be much harder and a lot more costly than we planned but we will do it anyway even if we have to spend three to four years.
‘If we were not insured it would be another story because I don’t know anyone who can find a million euros like that. We will not give up. We had some time to process it but it was quite hard. ‘
Dimitri and Swiss David are living five hours away from the manor in a French Alps flat while they are renovating.
When they received the call from police at 11pm on November 20, they sent friends over to check on the home and were devastated when they heard of its condition.
Dimitri added: ‘At first we thought it was a bad joke. We called some friends who went to the manor to see if it was true and the place had been burned through.
‘By the time the firefighters arrived it was too late, the place was engulfed in flames and we had already lost the roof. The attic was gone and everything had collapsed on the first floor.
‘It is a crazy story. We had five hours of driving so we were in denial, telling ourselves it would be fine. It was only when we saw the manor that we had the shock.
‘After the fire we had the most severe weather in the last two years, so there was constant rain. Without the roof there were litres of water.’
The DIY novice couple decided to take on the huge project by themselves, using YouTube to teach them how.
The property is surrounded by out-of-control plants with outdated interior design, dry wood, a leaky roof, and no water or electricity.
However, they have a dream to use the home to celebrate their wedding and turn it into a luxury bed and breakfast.
They started ripping out the damaged plants, trying to move the front gate to create a driveway and knocking down walls to open up the space – with dreams of finishing within a year.
But, with the fire causing a huge setback, they now believe it won’t be possible to open until 2028.
