A Castle without a Master Bathroom or an Open Kitchen
Don’t real estate agents say that what makes a house is kitchens and bathrooms? Think of any time that you have looked into buying a house. You know that kitchens and bathrooms can be deal breakers.
This last Sunday we visited the Chateau de Chenonceau. It is most famous for being gifted by King Henri II of France to his mistress, Diane de Poitier. Poitier, twenty years the King’s senior, lived in this mansion until the king’s death at which time his wife, Chatherine de Medici, kicked her out and took it as her own residence and lived there during her regency.
This French Chateau dating from Renaissance was built in the place of a castle that was partially demolished. The keep was kept and can be seen on the right in front of the castle. The Chateau was then built over the river Cher on the foundation of an old mill. It was eventually extended over the river to the opposite bank.
As you can see in the picture below the castle reaches across the river. The portion that looks like a bridge actually is a bridge. It is a big two story covered bridge that forms two grand halls. You can actually walk into the front and all the way through and out the other side — well, that is if they allowed you to do so. A text in the castle actually says that in World War II the caretaker was able to help Jewish refugees flee from the occupied zone to freedom at night by escorting them through the castle.
The living quarters of the castle are located in the squarish portion on the right in the picture above. These consist of bedrooms on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors.
These are generally large square rooms with small beds and the walls are hung in tapestries. Two of the bedrooms have libraries and studies that project out into the tower on the left. The right tower is a chapel. In each bedroom there is a small door in the corner that leads to a narrow staircase that descends down into the foundation of the castle.
There are no bathrooms.
The kitchen is tucked away into the foundation of the pillars supporting the castle. You can’t see it but between the first two pillars running from the right is a small enclosed wooden bridge from which they used to haul supplies up a pull from boats moored at the base. You cannot watch TV in the living room while you were spit roasting your stag.
There was a neat mechanism driven by a crank, weight and gears that would turn the spit for a period of time. So you might be able to run up from time to time to check the scores on the game, but the kitchen is not part of an open floor plan. There were also no marble counter tops.
Now how can you market something like this without essential features?
Without convenient bathroom, or even pipes, you would have to hire people to climb the narrow stairs. They would have to carry up your hot water for your bath. They would also have to carry out the — well, the stuff that pipes carry out in a more conventionally apportioned home.
As far as the kitchen, I guess, you would have to wire it for cable and somehow convince your friends to come sit down there next to the hanging game and smoldering fire places if you wanted some company while you were throwing together those hot wings and taco salad for the game. Or I guess, you could just hire a few more people to come in and cook it for you. This place is a little too far out in the woods for delivery — unless it could be done by boat from the river Cher.
The downside we are running into here is that after having to staff this big place we are going to run into a sizable payroll. But I think we can come up with a solution. It goes like this: let’s throw 22 million people off health insurance, outlaw any attempt to raise the minimum wage, institute a state religion (this will make the chapel more marketable), and then give those poor souls with no jobs in the surrounding rural area plenty of work in the house, in the gardens and in the fields as far as the eye can see from the tallest tower.
Some good hard work will be good for them. Somebody has to empty the chamber pots.
