It was internet cookies that led Karina and Craig Waters to buy a 94-room château. The Australian couple’s daughter, Jasmine, was on a school exchange in southwest France; as Craig followed her progress, his browser became inundated with property ads for the French Pyrenees. One pop-up featured the Château de Gudanes, a Dracula’s castle–meets–Downton Abbey in the Aston Valley. The couple tacked it onto a tentative property viewing list for their forthcoming trip. It was love at first sight, but there was just one problem: The Château de Gudanes was a forlorn wreck. It had neither water nor electricity, let alone a functioning roof. Trees grew from its turreted chimneys. Interior scaffolds were reflected in antique mirrors. Rooftop snowmelt dripped over Empire wallpaper dating from the late 1700s, back when when Voltaire and Diderot philosophized in the castle’s principal salon. It was a house of horrors—an atrophied mansion with the power to This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty Buy Now Related Stories Design Interiors Issue 44 Giancarlo Valle At work with Giancarlo Valle. Interiors Issue 44 Home Tour: Gergei Erdei Inside the London apartment uniting Greek mythology, medieval iconography and 1970s glamour. Design Interiors Issue 43 Vincent Van Duysen At home with the cult architect. Interiors Issue 43 Home Tour: Rose Uniacke An elegant palazzo—in Pimlico. Design Interiors Issue 42 Studio Tour: Fernando Caruncho Gardens sit between the natural and the artificial. George Upton meets the man mediating between the two. Interiors I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR Worlds collide in a Milanese apartment.
Interiors Issue 44 Home Tour: Gergei Erdei Inside the London apartment uniting Greek mythology, medieval iconography and 1970s glamour.
Design Interiors Issue 42 Studio Tour: Fernando Caruncho Gardens sit between the natural and the artificial. George Upton meets the man mediating between the two.
