On the one hand environmental rules and other bureaucratic initiatives are driving up the cost of maintaining stately homes. On the other, “the younger generations are urban,” [said Olivier de Lorgeril, chairman of La Demeure historique]. “They often want to have international careers and to live in towns and cities.”...
“A monument that is not lived in is a monument that is not looked after,” he said. “We keep repeating that our national monuments are in danger.”...
And here's a conversation between the elderly owners of Château de Courson, whose family has owned the place since 1775 and whose children don't want it because it "consumes just about all your life":
“We had that singer here once”...
“Oh, what was his name?”
“Sting”...
Yes. The article makes it sound as though Sting just dropped by once, but it was the location for his excellent 1985 film, "Bring on the Night." We saw the band rehearsing in at the Château de Courson. Michael Apted directed.
From the contemporaneous NYT review:
In addition to the performance footage, Mr. Apted also includes a few unexpected moments: a visit by a tourist group to the chateau where the musicians happen to be rehearsing (one woman keeps her fingers in her ears while walking through the room) and a disagreement between the costume designer Colleen Atwood and Miles Copeland, Sting's pushy manager. ''Well, I'm sorry, I'm just a peasant, man, but I'm telling you they look boring to me,'' Mr. Copeland complains noisily about the backup singers. It's a scene straight out of ''This Is Spinal Tap.''
Speaking of Sting, I was just thinking about his song — also from the mid 80s — "Russians":
We share the same biology, regardless of ideology/But what might save us, me and you /Is if the Russians love their children too....
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I used that same Sting quote a week or so, ago. Apropos.
Hmmm. How much?
The times they are a changin' ...
In early 1967, Bob Dylan and the musicians who would later become The Band began to record together, initially in the "Red Room" at Dylan's house, Hi Lo Ha, in the Byrdcliffe area of Woodstock.
In June, these sessions moved to the basement of Big Pink, where Hudson set up a recording space using two stereo mixers and a tape recorder borrowed from Dylan's manager Albert Grossman, as well as a set of microphones on loan from folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
Big Pink
Regarding costly and time-consuming real estate, consider France as foreshadowing what's coming for aging and northern locations in the US. Fewer children and a broad preference for the Sunshine Belt stands to drive down demand in the north. Also, the northern states often have stricter laws and higher taxes than southern states too.
Will these big and costly but unloved houses become low income and/or agricultural worker housing?
The big problem with these historic properties is that the French as a group have never been very interested in preserving them. In the 70s a lot of younger sons of English upper middle class moved to France where they could buy historic country estates they could never afford at home. The English as a group love preserving historic properties. No other country has such extensive conservation of historic properties. Barring ancient historic sites like the pyramids or the Colosseum.
With Britain exiting the EU these people are now forced to spend a certain amount of time in Britain every year. Not sure if this is EU or French regulations but the British ex pats who have spent the last forty years preserving France’s architectural country heritage are PISSED and many are thinking of selling up and buying small estates in Britain. Or at least a decent country cottage with a bit of land. Many of these people are gardeners but only kept town houses in Britain for trips home and so have nothing to do all day back in England excerpt walk the dogs. Much angst.
"Bring on the Night" 1985
The prescience of "This is Spinal Tap" (1984) goes to 11.
We'll know France is in trouble when the wine producing chateaus are left behind, the vines left to spread wildly or wither. Aside from that, they are like the rest of Europe. Those chateaus represent wealth and a class level from another era. Today's elite live in a loft in a major city, with a second home in the Napa Valley or in Bruges. Perhaps a third place somewhere on the ocean- south of France, SoCal, Maldives, Hawaii- next to the Obamas.
The young and wealthy today prefer to be mobile and have options. In case one of their addresses gets overrun by the rabble. You cannot keep a good rabble down forever, you know.
To make owning a large country house with 10 or more bedrooms worthwhile, you’re going need a lot of houseguests. Who needs that aggravation? Spending your life as a houseguest at your parent or grandparent’s house is not the ideal training for taking it over.
I thought in the 1980's that Mr. Sumner had drawn a false moral equivalence between the US and USSR, in his song Russians, when he said that :
"Mister Krushchev said, "We will bury you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view...
Mister Reagan says, "We will protect you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view..."
I still think that. And hadn't Krushchev been dead awhile at that point ?
Politics is bad for art. Ask Bob Dylan.
The British went through this a century ago, when they taxed the old families out of their estates. A lot of those properties are now tourist attractions or publicly owned.
From a practical standpoint, the upkeep on those places must be astronomical. They were built when servants, workmen, and artisans could be gotten cheaply. Now, your lucky if you can get a workman to show up to give you an estimate. And servants? You have got to be kidding me. I seem to recall a show about some English family taking on one of these estates and the travails they went through. Here is an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE_CFxuoLA4
Search in youtube on english family french chateau and you'll find a plethora of videos of people who have a dream of owning a huge white elephant (not that they aren't beautiful.)
That's one thing a lot of people don't get about old buildings, at least when one starts talking about historic preservation: They're stupid expensive to maintain. The questions I always ask people when they're proclaiming it a shame that some old building is planned for destruction are "Who's going to pay for the upkeep" and "What are you going to do with it". They're vexing questions.
Speaking of Sting, I was just thinking about his song — also from the mid 80s — "Russians":
Sting has just recorded an updated versions of "Russians" as a protest. Think you can find it on Instagram.
I thought in the 1980's that Mr. Sumner had drawn a false moral equivalence between the US and USSR, in his song Russians, when he said that :
"Mister Krushchev said, "We will bury you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view...
Mister Reagan says, "We will protect you"
I don't subscribe to this point of view..."
I still think that.
I dunno - transcribe "Krushchev" to "Putin" and "Reagan" to "Biden/Obama/Clinton" and it seems pretty coherent to me.
When Mitterrand was elected and decided to tax wealth, lots of French chateaux came on the market at low prices. I knew a group of three anesthesiologists who bought one and used it for a vacation home. Mitterrand quickly backed away from his Socialist policies and the prices went up again. I don't know if they still have it.
We saw Sting perform in his Musical 'The Last Ship' just before covid.
It is an autobiographical story about growing up in a ship-building town.
It was fantastic, and the guy has serious stage presence...
Someone just bought the equivalent of a French chateau in Bel Air for $126 million.
And that Bel Air house is unfinished so much more will be spent to finish it.
A friend of mine is part-owner, along with eight or nine other descendants (mostly boomers by now), of an outstandingly fine home in a small West Tennessee town about 70 minutes away from here.
It was completed in 1864 and older generations lived there until the 1960s or so; it has been updated to about 1970s level, has large grounds and gardens, outbuildings including a nice little house for a live-in caretaker . . .
It costs something like 40k a year to keep it open for family vacations and the occasional invasion by wargaming nerds. The younger generations of the family are less attached to the place.
Sad.
OTOH, there seem to be a lot of people who still want the French manoir for yoga b&b's, if House Hunters International is a fair picture.
Just say this more recent Sting version, based in France:
https://www.cnews.fr/culture/2022-03-06/guerre-en-ukraine-sting-reinterprete-sa-chanson-russians-1189801
Enough regulations can make any "wealth" negative.
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