Home by Design
Elbow Grease
Because the heart wants what the heart wants By Cynthia Adams
Closing our eyes to our termite-
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARIE MARRY ME
riddled garage and a looming bathroom tear-out, we snuggled down by the telly, cuddling our dogs, and watched Escape to the Chateau.
It is an ironic choice of escape from our to-do list. The series offers comforting perspective from years of projects in our (almost) century-old home. These two do-it-yourselfers beavering away on an ancient, shuttered, abandoned chateau lend perspective to the months of sweat equity we poured into our own relatively modest abode. This BBC program follows Dick and Angel Strawbridge, a British couple who bought a glorious French “pile” in 2015. Pile is Brit-speak for a very large house. But the French call this a chateau. Larger than Sleeping Beauty ’s Castle (albeit smaller than the Biltmore), the couple ’s picturesque 19th century Château de la MotteHusson is near the quaint village of Martigné-sur-Mayenne. They bought it for what they might pay for an unremarkable two-bedroom flat back in London: £280,000 pounds ($384,000) — a steal. With 45 rooms, twin turrets, an actual moat and walled garden — all poetically set upon 12 acres of pristine countryside — it is a thing of singular beauty. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
But one problem: this veddy beautiful chateau is in ruins. No running water, heat or electricity. And after the purchase, the Strawbridges are left with an impossibly small budget for the kind of home improvements this pile will require. Yet the couple dauntlessly ascribes to the motto “you eat an elephant one bite at a time” and rolls up their sleeves. The Mister, 59, laughs like Santa and has the belly to match. Meanwhile, the flamboyant and romantically inclined Missus, 40, twists strawberry-red hair into vintage curls and has a passion for red lipstick, arched brows, a hot glue gun, sewing, crafting and decoupage. They are dauntless, energetic, cart-before-the-horse types — we were stunned by what they did with this moldering and long-abandoned property in just one season. Years ago, I fell under the spell of an unusual Lindley Park home. It qualified as a “stockbroker Tudor” given that to afford its steeply pitched rooflines, many gables, brick and stucco features decorated with handsome half-timbers required a stockbroker’s bank account. As is unfortunately true of Tudors, the interiors were sunless. If the kitchen is the soul of a house, this one’s was dark. The property was in a state of beautiful disarray that suggested its former splendor. And I desperately wanted it. Let’s just say, I should have a reality show titled, The Masochistic Homeowner: The Early Years. O.Henry 29
