![]() Another military man then inherited the domain, Count Ludovic Hurault de Vibraye, whose daughter ceded the chateau to the local clergy upon his death in 1929. Portrait of Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier and his wife, chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze by Jacques-Louis DavidĪfter the chemist, the next tenant on record was Joseph Law, a heroic French soldier during the Napoleonic war who became a nobleman for his bravery. Surrounded by 26 hectares of secular trees, an adjoining chapel and various outbuildings including an orangery and 4 horse boxes, Lavoisier had the 16th century foundations rebuilt to his taste by the official architect of the French king himself. Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was widely considered as the “father of modern chemistry” and practised his experiments in chemistry and agronomy with his wife, Marie-Anne (who was also an accomplished chemist), on the grounds of the chateau until his arrest in 1794, when the property was seized. ![]() Two hours south of the capital, Chateau de Freschines was once owned by a famous French scientist who was guillotined at the end of the French revolution. “The asking price was huge, there were competing American buyers interested and nobody knew of us in the area”. After nearly losing hope, the unlikely pair eventually bought it with the help of a good friend and benefactor from Sologne, a region near Paris known for its large hunting estates. “But it was a David & Goliath fight,” she says. “We fell in love with the Chateau de Freschines and its park without knowing its history or anything about the previous tenants,” remembers Valerie, a recent graduate in political science who first laid eyes on the property in 2017 with her mother, who was instantly inspired by the unthinkable challenge of leaving their lives behind in Austria to revive a neglected 400 year-old French chateau. Several years later, we’ve found a similar fairytale: an architect from Austria, Elisabeth Herring, and her daughter Valerie, adopt a neglected 16th century French chateau, except in this story, they’ve decided to open up the house to guests as a Bed & Breakfast almost from the very beginning, to be a part of their journey as they bring this sleeping beauty back to life… Rear facade © Chateau de Freschines Details © Chateau de Freschines © Chateau de Freschines Work in progress © Chateau de Freschines Valerie, pictured at the front of the chateau in Spring 2019 © Chateau de Freschines Widespread interest, longing and general FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) ensued on the internet. Back in 2013, we broke a story about a couple that bought an abandoned chateau and started a blog to share their journey. ![]()
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