on HGTV impossible castleThe French chateau’s future depends on something less romantic: its wedding calendar. Married couple Daphne Reckert and Ian Figueira have her inheritance restored Lessini Castle The network said it was growing the hotel’s wedding and events business outside Paris to cover maintenance costs. The show’s second season begins in May 2026, recruiting Dick and Angel Strawbridge for their own reinvention to become the British series Escape to the castle.
Only the camera crew is new, though. Paying guests began staying at castles decades before reality TV was discovered. In Touraine, the ancient province surrounding Tours in the Loire Valley, Castle of Artini Opened in 1961 under hotelier René Traversac, the hotel was a period piece from the beginning, built between 1912 and 1929 by perfumer François Coty in an 18th-century style. It’s a parody of the past before guests can be accommodated, and that’s the joke buried in it all: a castle is rarely the single, stable thing that visitors imagine it to be. It’s layered and someone has to decide which layers are displayed.
People embrace it both for the fantasy and for the business plan that reality TV shows sell: centuries of history and a wedding business that may ultimately pay for itself. Validity depends in part on your passport. France allows owners who pay French taxes to deduct the cost of preserving monuments from their income without a cap, and are exempt from inheritance tax if they are open to the public. A foreigner chasing a dream rarely gets such a break, so a sum that seems devastating to outsiders could reserve an ancestral seat for a French family.
When buying a historic castle, the roof is the most important thing. The hard part is when faced with decisions like which scars to keep and which to smooth over, what to restore literally and what to reinvent in the old spirit. Then there are modern hotels, spas or elevators hidden behind stone that can be sneaked into without destroying what guests came to see. Heritage protection can range from listed interiors to unlisted neighbours’ gardens, depending on the condition of the property. The following castle projects, from the wine villages of Burgundy to the Loire Valley, show how owners and architects made these choices in practice and made restored houses accessible to visitors from around the world.
The house below the hotel
Guillaume Foucher, art historian and co-founder of the French hotel group Fontenier serieswas sold at citadel View in Meursault: rows of vines draw the eye towards the village bell tower. “Coming from Citeau, there is no doubt: you are in Burgundy,” he told the Observer. Inside lies an even bigger surprise: a 12th-century Romanesque crypt beneath the 19th-century room of Napoleon III, complete with frescoes and gilding, who was astonished to find these 800-year-old buildings in such a state. The spa, the modern part, is where misbehavior occurs. When the ceiling collapsed, the beams above were undersized and partially rotted, necessitating a complete reconstruction of the roof. Fontenial opened parts of the hotel during the summer and plans to carry out major works, including the roof, in November and December. Full opening is planned for March 2027 and will include 17 additional guest rooms, indoor pool and hot tub at Vieux-Clos. Restoring a house like this, Faucher said, “means knowing how to adapt your plan to what the architecture reveals as the work progresses.”
Restoring the dining room’s celadon green began by drilling small holes in successive layers of paint to find the earliest traces of color. Craftsmen matched it to a color card, then sandblasted and sanded the wood, then repainted it. In one of the restaurant’s medallions, conservator Alice Gardien spent three days restoring a portrait of Célestine, the daughter of Jules Bernard, the wine merchant who renovated the house in the 19th century. The restaurant is named after her. Fulcher also preserved the historic woodwork in the bar and lounge.
The staircase and the new library were places where he allowed himself to invent. The red carpet and faux marble slabs of the old staircase no longer fit his idea of a house. Only the shape of the earlier glass roof remains; the library’s new paneling borrows patterns from the pub. His patron saint is Eugène Violet-le-DucThe 19th-century architect restored the medieval fortress city of Carcassonne and treated history freely in his creative process. “What we’re interested in is this continuity, not an identical reconstruction,” Faucher shared.
exist Castle of AinelervilleA moated fortress in the Cher department in central France, the question is what should visitors notice. Behind the tower’s crumbling plaster, restorers discovered that the timber within the walls was still intact. Richard DupratThe architect of the restoration, one of the chief architects of France’s historic monuments, told Observer that the beams once carried the beams for hours and were wooden galleries where medieval defenders fought. After the Hundred Years’ War, the military past was largely erased as the castle was converted into a residence and its towers remodeled. The beams sealed into the wall are one of its last vestiges. With the support of the Regional Monuments Service, part of the Ministry of Culture, the timbers were exposed in a light lime, which Duprat explains means “observant visitors can discreetly see them without affecting the architectural style of the tower today.” The wood exposed its past defensive character, and later finishing has smoothed it out.
Château de Gilly, now renamed Wuruo spring water In Burgundy, it was a monastery before becoming a castle: the Cistercians of nearby Citeau (monks who contributed greatly to the invention of Burgundy’s vineyards) occupied it from 1300 and fortified it in the 1360s. It was looted and destroyed in the 1590s and later rebuilt into a grand residence. The cellar they dug now houses a spa. Here, too, old fabric dictated the course of the pipes: the archeology alone delayed the renovation by about five months, said Alice Tourbier, the company’s co-founder. Rice Resources Groupand an elevator to the back Protected historic cellar Once the team finds it impossible to dig further, it must reconsider. A spa installed in these vaults requires its own tricks: Turbier’s “box within the existing space,” separate wooden rooms set away from the stone, pools set without touching the original structure and moved, she says, “without leaving a trace.” this dragonThe regional agency of the Ministry of Culture oversaw the work as the team met accessibility and fire safety rules.
Venues have their own rules
Outside, the rules aren’t lax. At Cîteaux, the spa also had to respond to the ground, with plantings designed to wrap around the new building and dilute its presence. Fulcher said the castle itself is not classified as a historic monument, but its location within a conservation area surrounding a nearby castle gave him some freedom. Every French Ministry of Cultureany changes to the exterior of the property within the protected environment of the monument require prior approval from the French architect: a national heritage architect whose remit can also cover gardens and grounds. You don’t have to own the monument to be responsible for it.
Shampoo relay Situated in its own building, facing the royal castles of the Loire Valley, Chambord national domain nameThe public body that manages the estate inherits the palette of exterior finishes and stone tones. Operator President Arnaud Laporte-Weywada Francesaid getting heritage approval for the new wing from architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte was the most difficult part of the job. “We also had to carefully assess the light reflection of all new glass to ensure it would not interfere with the castle’s views,” he told the Observer. exist Amboise relayAt another Marougar hotel, below the Royal Chateau Amboise, the authorities once went in the opposite direction: Laporte-Vervada said the national heritage architect supported structural changes precisely because it would open up views of the Loire. Defenders of the old view seem to go to great lengths to improve it.
After the construction workers left
Foucher said it was too early to estimate annual maintenance costs because Cîteaux has only just completed the first phase of work. exist Prima WineryProfits from the Fontenille hotel, located in actress Catherine Deneuve’s former country house near Paris, pay to four gardeners to maintain the grounds, which hold a license from the culture ministry. extraordinary garden specified. Planting dozens of trees there costs tens of thousands of euros a year, he said, while the hotel’s revenue also supports the expansion and maintenance of the gardens.
Ainay-le-Vieil draws the clearest line between restoring and maintaining a castle. The property belongs to the same family Since 1467. Photographer Arielle Borne and her journalist husband Hervé Borne took over the project in 2019, Restoration completed in 2026. Arielle would not disclose the bill, but even so, public calls for the final phase of repairing the gatehouse, its three towers and fixed bridges, work expected to cost around €1.1 million, hint at the scale of the seven-year restoration. Grants and awards from the Ministry of Culture cover part of the investment, she said. The associated operating costs are borne by the castle itself: it opens its rooms and gardens to visitors, and rents out rooms and cabins at night, during which exhibitions and events are held. “It’s always a matter of finding the right balance,” she said.
After updating the roof and facade of the Gilly Hotel, Toubier’s team now closes the hotel for a few weeks each January, furloughing employees until the closure. The nights may be sold, she said, but serious work cannot coexist with an experience that guests pay for. “Preserving heritage is about anticipating its needs and continuing to invest, rather than waiting for problems to arise,” she said. Back in Aine, the Boneses will be planting two mazes and two cherry orchards this year to better give visitors a reason to return. “After us, our two sons, the younger generation will continue to develop Ainai and keep it alive, if they still want to do that,” Bone told the Observer.
