Review: "A Year at the Château" by Dick and Angel Strawbridge

 

A Year at the Château by Dick and Angel Strawbridge
Published March 2023 via Mobius
★★★★

If you've ever dreamed about buying a rambling old castle, here you go—vicarious kicks! When the Strawbridges started looking for a place in France, they initially had their eyes set on a standard house...but when they realized that they could rehabilitate something much grander, they switched tracks and eventually ended up buying the Château de la Motte-Husson, a dilapidated 47-room castle that hadn't been lived in for some 40 years.

This is more or less what I was hoping for when I read Downton Shabby, I think—a light read that is chock full of personality and, you know, castle. The Strawbridges documented their chateau journey for television, and even without having seen the series it's clear to me that they must have made good television. The whole book feels upbeat and vibrant, with a fairly hefty dose of whimsy.

A Year at the Château covers just that—the first year of ownership and renovations and, finally, their first event. I'm hoping that Living the Château Dream will also be more widely published so that I can read about the adventures and renovations that followed...because I don't want to renovate a castle of my own (let alone do TV shows to make it possible—no shade, and I'm delighted that other people are doing it, but being on television is not any version of my dream job!), but I do want to read about the adventure that is other people renovating a castle. Also, foodies take note: there are plenty of recipes to spur your imagination. I'm low-key the opposite of a foodie, but even I flagged a recipe or two to test out this summer.

My wish list is short: pictures! floor plan! The end. I read an ARC, so I'm optimistic that there will be many pictures in the final version. I'm always so curious about floor plans with this sort of thing, too, because they let me better imagine how spaces might have been used back when the building was built...or now that it's been repurposed. Or, in twenty or thirty years, maybe one of the Strawbridges' kids will write a book about what it was like growing up in a castle in the 21st century...

Thanks to the authors and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.