(CNN) — After spending several years renovating a nearly finished California home with his husband, the last thing graphic designer Mark Goff was thinking about was taking on another big project.
But curiosity got the better of him when a blog about renovating a ruined chateau in France popped up on his computer screen, and he began reading it intently.
Before he knew it, he was looking up how much a chateau costs and working out how quickly they could sell up and move to Europe.
While some might need a little time to mull over the prospect of buying a huge neglected property and emigrating to a foreign country, Goff’s husband, data engineer Phillip Engel, didn’t take much convincing.
“He was on a conference call,” Goff tells CNN Travel. “I turned my screen around, and just mouthed the words, ‘Would you like to buy a chateau in the south of France, restore it and create a boutique hotel or an entertainment venue?'”
A few seconds after clicking through the photos on Goff’s screen, Engel gave him the thumbs up.
Historic purchase
Mark Goff and Phillip Engel are the proud owners of Château Avensac, located in the French village of Avensac.
Château Avensac
“He went back to his conference call, and I started looking at plane tickets,” adds Goff.
Once they’d made the decision, there was the small task of finishing the work on their California house, putting it on the market, selling it, finding a suitable chateau and going about the process of relocating to a foreign country.
Before taking the plunge, the couple made two “discovery” trips to France, where they viewed French manor houses on the market to see what was available to them.
However, it would take a few years to get their affairs in order, and the Covid-19 pandemic delayed their move even further.
Goff and Engel were granted a visa towards the end of 2020, just over four years after “the click that changed the path of their lives” and moved to the south of France in December, while the country was in lockdown.
When things opened up again, they were able to view properties, focusing their search around Gers, a rural region in southwestern France.
Unfortunately their original choice fell through, but they soon found a listed historic chateau in the tiny village of Avensac, which has a population of less than 50, that ticked all the right boxes.
“We fell in love with it,” says Goff. “The chateau itself is amazing. The situation where it sits is amazing.”
‘Lords of the chateau’
The chateau has around 48 rooms,…
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