A Christmas wish
and then there was light
Just before Christmas
Almost Christmas, 2015. Looking at properties for sale can be rather addictive, you know. So there I was in our London home, all cozy and merry, thinking that a last random search on Bellesdemures.com before switching off for the day couldn’t hurt anyone.
Like with anything else, practice makes perfect and the more properties we viewed, the better we got at seeing the reality of things. But with Christmas around the corner, there was nothing new coming through.
Suddenly, a property I’d seen before jumped out, now striking me in a different light. There it was glistening on the palpitating screen, the elegantly imposing Chateau de Belebat.
I first came across this property back in September, when we first started our search and I really liked it. I had felt that this is what I would love to get, a project to sink our teeth into. Sadly it was priced way above our budget and, most of all, Jeff was not interested in a restoration work of such proportions.
Now, three months later, after viewing dozens of buildings and discussed all sort of different restoration works, the scene glistening on the palpitating screen was no longer all that scary. Besides, there was another element, it came up listed by three different agencies and, what’s more, there were three different prices!
All I could then see was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.
At that point, I dint know where it was or how this château was even called. An image search on google — and hours of screen-time — gave me a location: Assay, près de Champigny Sur Veude and a name: Château de Belebat. I needed more, three real estate agencies had it and that meant three channels to get information.
Dusted-off my troglodyte French and wrote that very first email. Within two days I had floorplans, a little bit of its history and more photos. Lots of photos.
There was far more to this property than I imagine from the listing. Dating back to 1550 and situated between the historical town of Chinon and the “Ideal City” of Richelieu — built in the 17th century at the order of the notorious Cardinal Richelieu, Château de Belebat came with an interesting errand of outbuildings (shades, workshops, stables, cellar, kennels…) a small forest and two lakes. Trying to burn my excitement away I drew the floorplans and laid out the interior. Simple and functional this small grand house was perfect for us.
Two hours west of NYC, on the banks of the Delaware river, there’s a beautiful four bedroom mountain lodge. Jeff built it. Over years of building works Jeff lived in a construction zone and was now not at all interested in doing it again. If Belebat was going to happen I had to put everything I have in it. I spent the following two weeks pitching my vision to a so-not-responsive husband.
Persistence was the key. Maybe Jeff was exhausted, or annoyed, or it’s very likely he was feeling sorry for me at that point… But one evening just before the end of 2015, Jeff turned around, looked at me, and asked to hear my crazy idea again.