Sleeping beauty: thousands of people club together to buy a share in a derelict fairytale castle in France
Thousands of strangers have clubbed together to buy a fairytale castle in France – and there’s still time to join them and buy a share of the château before Christmas.
More than 10,000 people have contributed 50 Euros or more to buy a share of the ruined 13th-century chateau de la Mothe-Chandeniers in the Poitou-Charentes region, 190 miles south-west of Paris.
The sale is part of a campaign — the first of its kind according to the French crowd-funding platform Dartagnans, which specialises in heritage, art and culture fundraising — to save the spectacular building from demolition and restore it for the future.
The first phase, involving buying the castle has hit its 500,000 euro target, and phase two, which hopes to raise a further 500,000 euros towards its restoration is already 70 per cent complete, with 855,000 euros raised so far.
Buyers from France, the UK, US, Japan and Indonesia have all bought shares in the scheme.
"It’s a great surprise that cultural heritage can gather people from all over the world thanks to the internet and social media," says Romain Delaume, CEO of Dartagnans.
One share buys each co-owner one vote in the running of the planned restoration project, two will buy two votes in what Delaume describes as a democratic process.
The castle was built in the Middle Ages but fell into serious disrepair by the end of the twentieth century.
The powerful Baucay family began building the chateau in the early 13th century and it is completely surrounded by a moat, a common medieval security feature.
Nonetheless, the château was taken twice by the British during the Middle Ages, before becoming a well-known destination for high-society parties.
Ransacking in the French Revolution took a further toll on the spectacular building but a succession of wealthy buyers in the nineteenth century all tried their hands at restoring the castle to its rightful grandeur until it was destroyed by a fire in 1932, taking an entire library of rare books, antique tapestries and paintings with it.
The castle was then left abandoned and nature began to take over, with trees and vines growing inside and out.
In 1981 a teacher called Marc Deyemer bought the château in the hope of repairing it but found himself unequal to the challenge and it looked likely that La Mothe-Chandeniers would be bought by a developer and razed to the ground.
This eventuality has already been avoided by the campaign reaching its funding limit.
The co-owners, who will act as a society with an executive committee, will be involved in the annual general meetings, while a steering committee will democratically oversee the project.
Co-owners will be able to check on the restoration progress via a dedicated website.
The opportunity to buy a share in the campaign closes on Christmas Day.