by Sam Juneau
I set about rounding up the usual suspects, the many estate agents I had so lovingly studied for the past seven years. They came running, ravenous for the chance to sell a chateau in the Loire. Even though I didn’t have a real sense of the chateau’s value before my encounter with the Dutch couple, I had continued poring over the property market for a vicarious thrill. I spoke directly and firmly with them. Bud and I discussed it and set the price at 1.5 million euros, with a little leeway for negotiation. A little, not a lot. That might or might not include the furniture, depending on how long it would take to sell. If we sold quickly, we might be more parsimonious; if it took a while, we’d throw it into the deal.
Although we were in no position to be choosy, I made it very clear: no sightseers. We ourselves had been guilty of this – curious and tantalised by the chance to peek at other estates, we had made appointments with no real intention of buying. Not often, but we had. The indignity of strangers traipsing through our house was one thing, but the indignity of strangers without means on a Sunday outing traipsing through our house was unbearable.
Within a month, our first offer came in. I received an urgent call from one of the agents, Monsieur Challanville. ‘Sam, we have an offer from the gentleman who came last week. You know, the man who creates parfums in Paris.’ Indeed. A robust, tall man with black hair to the middle of his back, a vintage Rolls-Royce and a young, beautiful wife.
‘Yes, I remember.’ My heart was racing. What was the house really worth, today, on the open market? I could hardly bear the suspense.
‘Now, the offer is very good and generous. I think you should think hard. It is a fair price…’
‘What’s the offer?’ I cut him off.
‘One million two hundred thousand, including agents’ fees.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ I said, cool as a cucumber, while almost wetting my pants.
It was lower than we wanted but I was deeply relieved to hear those numbers.
I told Bud.
‘Oh no. That’s much too low,’ she replied. Mrs Moneybags, evidently.
‘I know, I know, but it’s still exciting to know we’re in the right range.’
‘Yes, but we need more than that. It’s so soon too, we just put it on the market.’ I couldn’t tell if this was a ballsy ploy or a resistance to selling.
I wrote to the agent and told him the offer was too low. I countered with the asking price, 1.5 million euros. I instructed him to bring only serious buyers to the house acting the big shot. I was willing to gamble a little. I knew we could soldier through another summer and, if need be, I could always work in New York in the winter. It wasn’t ideal but it did give us some flexibility in spite of our poor, church-mouse cash flow.
We had a further dozen or so visits. Many were tourists, some were serious but saw too much work. The pickiest and most demanding were French, even though they were few and far between at this price range. I thought briefly of banning French buyers from the property. Perhaps this was too severe but my feeling was, and anecdotal evidence showed, the French were good up to about 800,000 (£550,000); after that it was all foreigners. We were sceptical about whether or not the perfume guy could actually come up with the money. We had heard through another agent that his real budget was around 800–900,000. This inability to buy the big country house was, understandably, a source of great irritation for the French.
We continued to accept guests, albeit with an air of resignation knowing that we might be rid of the white elephant some time in the not-too-distant future.
We explored the woods, wandered the outbuildings and visited the guest rooms more than we had in the past. We took pleasant long walks up the lane and looped back around on a small hill to gaze affectionately at our stately home. I won’t say we were overly sentimental, just appreciative of our opportunity to share in the life of this great home.
One day I received a call.
‘Mr Juneau. I want to speak to you about your chateau for sale. Is it still for sale?’
‘Yes. Where are you calling from?’
‘I am in Italy and I represent buyers who would like to make an offer. We are willing to pay your full asking price plus a small bonus in order to wrap up the sale quickly. Are you interested?’
It sounded too good to be true. ‘Of course, we are always interested in serious offers.’
‘You must come to Milan to meet my buyers and we will discuss terms. Can you come here this weekend? They are very motivated.’
‘That is such short notice. I think it is best if your buyers come to visit the house first. We can meet here, I will show you the property and we can proceed.’
‘This is not possible. It is essential you come to Italy.’
It seemed very odd to make an offer on a large estate without having seen it. I spoke to Bud. She was suspicious, but I grew more excited at the prospect of an easy sale and worked out fantasies in my head of how it would all go down. I was walking on air.
I checked flights and trains, suspicions aside, and was about to book something, when Tom and Hannah came by to help out with the woods. We sat in the salon drinking coffee and sampling Hannah’s latest country relish. I took the opportunity to feel Tom out on the offer.
‘What do you think, Tom? Sound a little fishy? Would you be willing to come with me for the meeting?’ I knew Tom would be handy in a tight situation, given his background as a top secret special forces guy.
‘Sam, I just read an article on the Web. There is a network of kidnappers working out of Italy and Greece who lure wealthy property sellers away, kidnap them and demand ransom. One man was killed in Nigeria during a similar type of transaction. I can’t believe you were even considering it.’
Embarrassed that Bud’s intuition was spot on, I dropped the idea. The man from Italy called a few more times and I grew increasingly impatient, even rude, with him as I probed his motives. He was reserved and unwilling to give up any information or any hint of evil-doing. Finally, he went away, on to his next prey.
One weekend in early July, one of our best agents, Patrick from Agence Mercure, called to arrange a visit. He said they were indeed serious buyers, a New Zealand couple living in London. They had contacted him earlier in the week and wanted to come as soon as possible and spend a weekend at the chateau. They would pay for a suite and visit the house.
Ed and Irina Mercy arrived late Friday evening in a minivan straight from the UK–France ferry with two kids and hopeful faces. It struck me how much like us they were. Late thirties, early forties, simply dressed, articulate and curious with small children. We spoke briefly as I showed them their suite. Their first impressions left them smiling and gazing around with wonder. They too were tired of the rat race, wanted more time with the children and wanted to live a simpler life in the countryside. Sounded familiar. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t necessarily like that, this life, but I also wanted to sell the house, so I let them dream romantic dreams.
The next morning, I served breakfast in the dining room and we retired to the library for a chat. They had a thousand questions, practical things like schools and transport and heating and electricity bills, taxes and living in France. When a prospective buyer gets down to the nitty-gritty of these details, so I thought, they have made some sort of emotional or mental connection with the place. They wanted to know all about the business and the weddings and precisely how we did things. Bud and I sat and casually shared our experiences; casually but very honestly. They seemed to take it all in. We stressed that the house and business were hard work without putting too fine a point on it. Their tone and attitude reminded me of the first time we saw that castle in Ireland what felt like many years ago. We had driven there looking for a marriage venue. As soon as we saw the house and poked around inside, we looked at one another and said, almost simultaneously, ‘This is it.’ They were so enamoured with the idea of what we were doing, anything we told them would have sounded wonderful. We could have told them running the property was like
being bitten to death by ducks and they would have smiled and thought only that duck was delicious.
Within three days, the Mercys made an offer: 1.38 million euros. We were very pleased about the news but the offer included all the furniture, except for personal things, and the business. We pointed out to the diligent Patrick that the price for the house was sans furniture, sans business. Of course, we had resigned ourselves to letting the whole thing go, including every stick of furniture and our anaemic business. But we had to pretend, at least, we were driving a harder bargain. We indicated we could do the whole package for one and a half million. Where we found the temerity to insist on such things is beyond me.
They came back immediately and raised their offer to the asking price. That day, Bud and I left the kids with Patricia and drove to a nearby Relais & Châteaux. There we drank cocktails in the garden, giggled and whispered sweet nothings to one another as we plotted our new life. It was a glorious day. We passionately painted our futures and sculpted our hopes for a new life while reliving all the good and hard things that had followed our decision those four years ago.
Normally, the next step after an offer in France is to sign a compromis de vente, a contractual agreement to both buy and sell the house. The Mercys were delaying, niggling and questioning the agents’ fees (five per cent, but included in the price), the notaire’s fees (another six per cent), the state of the septic system. The compromis was a big step. The general practice, though not a law, is to put ten per cent down at this first signing. In this case, it was 150,000 euros (£103,000). We had put down the equivalent of 35,000 four years earlier.
Then Irina became alarmed when a cowboy English surveyor told her the septic system would cost 100,000 euros to replace. The number was assuredly closer to 15–20,000– money we didn’t have, but not terrible for someone laying out a million and a half. I calmed their nerves on this and even found them an artisan who could bring the toilet works up to current standards.
Irina rang me one evening. As we were talking, she shared a thought, nonchalantly.
‘We are ready to sign but as you know, Ed is a contract IT worker. He makes a very good salary but it is without a permanent contract. We also have our house in London which we need to sell, but this shouldn’t be a problem with the way the market is over here. But before we sign and put down the deposit, the French banks have to get their heads around how Ed makes his money.’
That was it. I knew the deal was dead. Our celebration had been premature. There was no way on God’s green earth that the banks in France were ‘getting their heads’ around anything. They had chosen to go with French banks and French banks would block a loan to Bill Gates because he had no salary and was working for charity nowadays. I told Bud about the conversation and she turned white.
‘I knew it. It’s too big. We’ll never sell. What are we going to do?’
‘In the short run, we need to continue as if the house is still for sale, live life as usual. I’ll have to go to New York again soon.’
It was devastating. One more winter away, the pressures now of three children, Bud alone with them in the house, again. We licked our wounds and forged ahead. We knew the implications and had no other choice.
A week before my planned departure to the Big Apple, we received another call from Patrick. He was always very calm and patient, never overly excited but professional and consistent. He had sold chateaux before – he knew we were in it for the long haul. His last large chateau in our area had taken three years to sell.
‘Samuel, we have some more prospective buyers. The Mercys say they are still going to buy the house, but I think it might not happen. How’s next Wednesday? It is a Dutch couple. They seem quite serious, but we thought the Mercys were serious too.’
‘Of course,’ I replied resignedly.
That Wednesday, Patrick showed up with an elegant, reserved couple in their mid fifties, the Van den Redders. She was fashionably dressed, a horsey woman who looked younger than her years and exuded a stateliness befitting a potential chatelaine. He was quite tall with a thick thatch of white hair, dressed in corduroys and tweeds and sensible leather shoes. We said hello and I let them get down to business.
Later that day, as our special guests were leaving with the agent, Patrick said, ‘We have another viewing tomorrow morning. Is that OK?’
‘That’s late notice, but fine. We will be here.’
Bud and I sat in bed that night talking about our latest visitors. Anxiety was the order of the evening as we spoke of my imminent departure. We were not taking my leaving for granted. We had survived the previous separations well but were by no means interested in testing the limits. We both fell into a fitful sleep, bookends in our bed for our three carefree, healthy children.
The next day at nine in the morning, Patrick showed up. With the Van den Redders. What a surprise. He hadn’t indicated the visit was with the same couple from the day before. Mrs Van den Redders entered the main gallery with a slightly embarrassed look on her face. Her husband followed closely behind, nodded in my direction and smiled a devious, collegial smile that spoke volumes.
Within a week, we had signed the compromis de vente for the asking price, including most furniture and no mention of the business. No delays, no hemming, no hawing: we needed to get out and the Van den Redders had fallen head over heels in love with the place.
Like Frank and Rosemarie from Roundwood House, like Philippe the ruffled agent, like Johan and Monique, the Van den Redders were placed in our lives for a purpose, placed serendipitously with life-changing consequences. La vie est belle.
Right away, I started our search for a new house. Why and how we decided to stay in France, a beautiful, thorny and complex country, is another story.
One day in early autumn, as the leaves slid effortlessly to the ground and the sun sat majestically brilliant in the cool pre-winter sky, I darted into the kitchen with a handful of papers splashed with possibilities of a new life, a new dream. We had tried and failed at our endeavour, we had sought happiness and left behind the money and anonymity of New York for a new life. In our seeking, we had gained not the life we hoped for but a new, deeper understanding of who we were and who we could be. We had sought not riches but happiness and, in the end, by luck and pluck, gained more of one and less of the other.
As the clocked ticked away towards the now inevitable exchange, we sometimes grew nostalgic about the place. It did seem odd that someone else would take over something we had poured so much energy and passion into. We envied their new adventure. We experienced the vicarious thrill of having real money to fix up the chateau. Bud and I talked of what we would do if we had a few extra hundred thousand euros. We knew we were doing the right thing. There was never a moment of true regret but there were instances, pangs of ‘what if ’. There were fleeting moments of panic as we let go of what we had fought so hard to create. The passing of the chateau from our hands to theirs was just another of life’s little deaths. But we were steadfast in our hope that the mortality of this venture would give birth to new and engaging challenges.
‘Bud,’ I yelled as I bounded into the kitchen like an excitable puppy. ‘I found this area, it’s called the Dordogne. There’s this beautiful chartreuse, an eighteenth-century manor house. It needs a lot of work but we can pay cash and worry about the renovations later. It says here, the region is known for strawberries, walnuts, truffles and foie gras. And there are hundreds of chateaux and delightful places to visit.’ My enthusiasm waned as Bud frowned. I quickly realised the problem. ‘Oh, don’t worry about the foie gras, focus on the strawberries.’
I showed her the photo.
‘Sam, you know what I love about you? You’re stubborn but at least you’re single-minded. Quite simply, you never learn.’
Filled with a deep, satisfying liberation about our uncertain future, I laughed, and Bud joined in. Indeed, it was already pleasing to look back and remember even these things.
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Sam Juneau, A Chateau of One's Own