JOIE DE VIVRE


COLUMN


The intrepid châtelaine


Treading in the footsteps of owners long gone, Erin Choa feels an emotional connection to the past


T


he strange thing about living in a castle is the direct connection with the past that I feel


so keenly. There are rooms at Château de Bourneau that feel as if time is wearing thin and a fl ash of another era might just seep through with a swish of a silk dress or scent of rose water. It is as if I enter a room in mid- conversation a century ago, hung on a suspended pause and waiting for me to leave before the conversation restarts again. The Red Salon in the


west wing is particularly atmospheric, wrapped in shadow with the scent of old pages and beeswax in the air. While it is our private salon, we rarely have time to sit and use it and so it remains in parenthesis, like a time capsule under a whisper of dust. Nothing has changed for 160 years – the same portraits hang in the same positions, gazing down from their lofty panels and displayed at an angled lean: the best way to admire them in an era of low-lit oil lamps. The old clocks are


Living in a castle means you can’t help but wonder about its past


paused and the few remaining pieces of original château furniture are still to be found in this room. Even if the grand porcelain ginger jars have been lost decades ago, their lids still remain in the same place. The château ancestors gaze


down from the walls as if they are keeping a keen eye on our progress, watching curiously as I mend old pieces of furniture and scrub years of dirt from


walls. I wonder what they were like and how they used these spaces in what is now my home, musing on whether there is a story behind the dent in the parquet or the tiny chip on the grand staircase. As I trail my fi ngers along the cool carved marble of the fi replace, I’m sure that I am following the curious fi ngers of one of our château predecessors over 100 years ago, also admiring the beauty and workmanship of a long- gone artisan. There is something


Little has changed in 160 years – the same portraits gaze down from the walls 108 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: May/June 2024


particularly special and romantic about old French houses that make dreamers of all of us. I think our guests feel it too, daydreaming of another era in the quiet, sun-drenched afternoons. It is that reassuring sense of permanence in houses that have seen centuries fl y by and yet remain impervious to the outside world, frozen in their own time. I love the beauty of the tiny details


of fi xtures and fi ttings, the delicately carved doorknobs, window handles and shutter fastenings shaped like 18th- century ladies that escaped the 1970s refurbishments.


The hand-carved panelling,


ornate ceiling plasterwork and richly patterned parquets speak of another century but they never lose style, even in a 21st- century home. I am grateful to each generation that did their part in preserving the château and now it is our turn to be the guardians of the estate for this generation, looking after this historic house and adding our conversations to the old walls. And perhaps in another


hundred years time, the next châtelains will wonder about us or imagine our footsteps crossing the parquet. Or perhaps they will simply look up at the 4.5m high walls with a sigh and curse me for my choice of wallpaper! ■


London-born hospital doctor Erin Choa is the 6th châtelaine of Château de Bourneau, where she lives with her French fi ancé Jean-Baptiste and bossy cat HRH Oscar. She blogs about their château-life on Instagram @theintrepidchatelaine @chateaudebourneau


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