The Spanish proverb says that “things in the palace go slowly.” And with a castle it was not going to be less. Angel (London, 43 years old) and Dick Strawbridge (Myanmar, 62 years old) know this well, who in 2015 left behind a two-bedroom apartment in Southend (England) to buy a 19th-century castle in northwestern France and go live in it.
Since then, this couple has dedicated themselves fully to reforming it, both to turn it into a home for three generations and to erect a special place in which to celebrate events of all kinds. And all this path has been seen in Our Own Castle, a program that COSMO broadcasts from Monday to Friday at 9:00 p.m. and which premiered its ninth season last February.
Both are regulars on British television, and it was in that world that they met. She, a writer and businesswoman, had her first appearance in 2010 on Dragon’s Den, a program in which unknown people have a few minutes to present their project to successful entrepreneurs to get investors. Angel was part of this last group, after standing out in London with his pastry shop The Vintage Patisserie. That same year, Dick participated in the BBC’s MasterChef Celebrity Edition, where he made it to the final. Burmese by birth, he joined the British Army in 1979 and had already appeared in another show, Scrapheap Challenge, where you have to build a machine that meets certain requirements out of scrap metal.
That skill with his hands is appreciated now that they have set out to reform an entire castle. To the initial price they paid for the building, some 335,000 euros, little by little the investment in rehabilitating it has been added, which already amounts to another 300,000 euros —and which is already amortized thanks, for example, to the events held in it-. They have repaired almost everything with their own hands and with the help of some friends. Angel jokes that Dick is “very efficient”, something that he liked about him and that caught his attention when the representative they shared introduced them at a birthday party. “We’re almost 20 years apart and we come from completely different walks of life,” says Dick, “but we just hit it off and haven’t been apart since that first night. We sat and chatted and saw each other every chance we got. And suddenly we are living in a castle with two children. How about?”.
The Strawbridge couple, on the scaffolding of the castle, during the rehabilitation of the façade.COSMO
Going to live in a castle was not an easy decision. Dick describes it as an “uncomfortable” process, but they were confident in its potential to adapt it to a family space: “We knew that we could do what we set out to do. And that is not arrogance. It’s because we both planned, we both thought and it was hard because we spent a long time without water, heating, electricity, sewage, without any of that, it was obviously a bit of a problem. But we manage to organize our lives pretty quickly. And a month and a half after signing the purchase of the castle, Angel, the children and I moved in”.
In search of a fairytale castle
Finding the right building was not an easy task either. The search lasted for four years until they received some photos of this nineteenth-century castle in northern France, which had been uninhabited for several years. The chosen one was the Chateau-de-la-Motte Husson, a fortification located in the Pays de la Loire, in western France. The place had plenty of potential to become a home for her two children and even the grandparents: 45 rooms, seven outbuildings, nearly five acres of land, and its own moat. In addition, they have added some gardens and have carved orchards.
Angel explains that at the beginning they were open “to any possibility”, they were not only looking for castles: “We also saw a lot of pseudo chateaux. Also town houses, country houses and we even looked at some small properties so that our life could be different”. Anything they wanted it to have they added to a list, like a laundromat, landscaped walls, or two tall towers. “Towers look great at weddings. I didn’t need them for our house, but if we were thinking of doing a wedding business, they would be enchanting because of the fairy tale narrative,” Angel argues, “and when we first saw it it was literally like a dream, it was everything we wanted. It was beautiful and had everything we had on the list”.
Once there, they were given a 200-page document listing the various problems the castle had. But they didn’t see in it “anything that was an impediment or a big enough problem” to discourage them,” Dick explains. The poor condition also helped to lower the price, since they suspect that if it had been well equipped they could not have allowed it, confesses Angel. Now, says the businesswoman, they earn money with it thanks to the wedding business and the celebration of other parties: they themselves inaugurated it by celebrating their wedding there. After great advances, this season they will face one of the biggest challenges: rebuilding the roof and exterior walls.
The couple denies that living in a castle is something “terrifying” and, on the contrary, they describe their stay there as “enchanting”. Dick acknowledges that “it’s not the oldest castle in the world either”, since it’s only 150 years old; but they assure that there are no ghosts, nor are the towers haunted nor is there absolutely nothing scary, something that they have to explain from time to time to the most frightened guests, jokes Angel, who insists that “just because it’s bigger doesn’t have more likely to be haunted than a smaller house.” They have had time to verify it in these two years, when as a consequence of the pandemic they have not been able to celebrate any event. “In all this time it’s just been a home that our kids love too,” Dick clarifies.
The Strawbridge family, with children Arthur and Dorothy in the center of the photo.COSMO
The Strawbridges still have the castle and renovations for a while, and they barely remember their old apartment. Although they admit that it is also very comfortable to live in a more compact place, with everything at hand. The only thing they miss from their old life? Not having to deal with 112 steps to move around the home and having to clean a lot less. But they wouldn’t go back for the world. The Spanish proverb also says it: “Every little bird likes its nest.”
