Honestly I’m supposed to be looking for a new place, but now I’m just looking at castles like, yeah I could make this work.
There’s no way that castle only has 6 bedrooms.
the other rooms are dungeaons.
What OP fails to mention are the humongous taxes and upkeep costs
If you get a castle for free you’re not likely to be charged property tax, considering the value initially is €0. But obviously if it was such a great deal the free castles would have been sold out by now.
What if I just want one so I can hold a sword up in front of it an yell “I HAVE THE POWER!” like He-man? Can I still get one? Guys, why are you walking away?
Even if I don’t do the upkeep, what are they going to do to me? Lay siege?
This is giving “What are you going to do, stab me?” vibes…
OK, but restoring a castle is not gonna be cheap. This has “credit cards are great because I don’t have to pay anything for 3 months” vibes.
What does it mean access to the chapel and East Wing? Are those… not included? Is it a museum or something?
I read it as “a bedroom wing […] with access to the chapel”, as in, they’re connected.
The catch is that they’re in bumfuck nowhere, really expensive to heat/cool, and just generally not well suited to modern lifestyles as well as being uncomfortable to live in in general.
It’s designed with surviving attack as the primary purpose, everything else is secondary. Sure, it’s luxurious by medieval standards, but any home up to code in the first world is science fiction levels of luxurious by those standards. Indoor plumbing, heating that hits every room, smokeless lighting, cooling, wall to wall carpeting, smokeless cooking… all luxuries you better hope you can install at all, though you probably can’t do it great, and definitely can’t do it inconspicuously.
And that’s not even hitting on the “too big home” problem. People can manage a bigger house than they need, sure, but only to a point. Even a late 20th century mansion is too much for a person who can’t burn a ton of money heating such a large building and doesn’t have servants to do the various tasks associated with such a large home. Just think of all the cleaning required.
Now if you’ve got a decently large polycule/commune/family where everyone is down to do a lot of chores and doesn’t mind not having running water, then this is for you. Hopefully you’ve got an electrician in there because I can’t imagine it’s cheap to have someone safely wire a house with a stone interior, especially to the standards most people want.
Wiring a stone building would be reasonably easy, you’d just have to run everything in conduit.
Okay so we’ve all heard of the transgender ranch. Who’s gonna start a transgender castle‽
You’re better off buying a monetary/convent or a failed university. Modern ones have modern amenities and they’re still relatively cheap because middle of nowhere and hard to repurpose. They’re definitely more expensive than free, but I place a lot of value on indoor plumbing.
Yeah a friend was looking into making a trans commune a few years ago. Another option was abandoned elementary/high schools, but they don’t really conduct themselves to residence well.
The convents were actually tempting, they’re a nice middle ground between castles and going full Sanyasin and building a commune from scratch with single family housing.
I’ve never heard of the trans ranch though
Stone doesnt really burn, so as electrical goes, its a pretty nice medium. You just need to have the conduit exposed on the wall to do it cheaply.
Plumb it similarly. Pipes along the wall. Could be nice but heating and cooling could get complicated fast.
My expectation would be that financing is difficult to acquire, and the upkeep and renovation to make/keep it habitable ends up being a money hole. So if anything, it’s just like buying a normal home in the US.
Also OOP is hugely downplaying the amount of responsibility and rules you have to follow with most of these.
“You see that chicken? It’s made from chicken! Kill it, you get free chicken!”
“This here’s wool, it grows on sheep. Cut it off, sell it, it fuckin grows back again! You cannot lose!!!”
Pay for it in cash, hire enough staff to maintain it like a true manor lord.
Yet another nice thing that’s reserved only for the rich…
Honestly this one is a wealth transfer method because it doesn’t bring in shit and the upkeep is a bitch
That’s why you pay people to do the upkeep. Cause you’re probably already rich if you bought a castle.
And it can bring shit in if you use the land to generate revenue. Paying people to work it for you, of course. Cause that’s what manor lords do…
They will only give you a castle if you’re already wealthy, it’s a whole process to check you have existing assets. They’re not giving castles to random people with ordinary income.
Socialism for the rich!
I mean, the poor literally don’t have the means to restore a castle. Let alone afford the utilities.
Cool, you can have a leaky, rotting pile of stone in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, or a swanky apartment right in the middle of NYC.
Buying the castle would only be the start.
What do you want with 1200 square foot (everything but metric) and only 1.5 baths?
Yeah but like… what if my dream isn’t to own an overpriced done up apartment in the middle of a noisy polluted city around millions of other people where you sit in traffic just to get anywhere?
If you live in the middle of NYC, you’re not getting stuck in traffic because you’re not driving.
You do you, but buying something like that castle would be like buying a boat.
The purchase price is just the start.
If you can afford 1.6million for a NYC apartment, you can afford 1.3million and upkeep for a castle. People don’t buy luxury NYC apartments to live in. They buy them to peacock to other rich people. At least if you have a castle, you’re creative with your peacocking.
Ooh, I’m liking Kinloch Castle on the Isle of Rum! (Better than the nearby Isle of Muck, for sure!) Only £750,000! Sure it’s a fixer-upper, but it includes a Steinway piano, an orchestrion, and “Victorian bathrooms with multi-function shower cabinets!” Whatever the heck those are, and they aren’t shown in the video. Neither is the kitchen. At least the local community is in support of getting it bought and renovated. I don’t know why all those billionaires are building ugly bunkers from scratch instead of putting them under the wine cellar of an island castle.
Edit: Well I still don’t have a picture of the castle bathrooms but “multi-function shower cabinets” might refer to fixtures like these, with an overhead shower, all-around needle spray, liver and kidney spray, and bidet.
Right? At least have some style.
No moat, no sale.
Sail*
https://www.castlecollector.com/resources/guides/how-to-live-in-castle
I’d see that as a 10% annual upkeep costs, similar to boats.
I’ll move to Italy to accept my free castle and be a hermit and caretaker, so long as it comes with a massive library I can stock with books. I think I’ve found my new life’s calling.
Massive library?
Have you been to a castle 😁
You could have like the summer library of detective stories, the winter library of science, the autumn library of dark eastern writers and the spring library filled with frivolous lecture without even breaking a sweat.
The caveat is that you would probably have to upgrade it enough so the books in the library don’t mildew from the weather. But if you have a million and can take on one of those free ones, I can see tackling that one room at a time.
Don’t get the castle in England but in France, good weather and holes in the castle will keep all the books sane.
How are you going to pay for the 3000€/month energy bill to keep the thing warm enough to stay reasonably mold-free, while being an hermit?
Heating the whole thing is just dumb. Plus an old castle is drafty which reduces humidity. But even if the stones mold in the winter a quick bleach scrub takes care of it. Natural stone isn’t a very mold friendly material anyway.
Of course that’s the issue you have to heat any parts that are renovated. So depends on the castle you get
You would have to at least heat the library, or the books are going to rot.
Easy, I’ll just wait to be contacted on a dark and stormy night by a lawyer in a fancy suit to inform me that my long lost reclusive great grandfather has passed away, and I as the sole remaining heir, have inherited his fortune along with his castle. The only catch is, of course, that in order to accept the inheritance, I must spend a full week sleeping in said castle. After that, bringing on his quirky, and mysterious staff to help me manage and run the place should be no problem. As long as I remember to NEVER set foot in the basement, I’ll be fine.
Well I’d make a good start by installing really good insulating windows throughout. Then there’s probably room and access to put solar panels on the battlements
If it’s a historical monument you’re stuck with period windows installed by approved contractors (or yourself if you manage to source glass that wouldn’t get you fines for not respecting the historical accuracy the State wants). There’s a reason there’s so many ruins, the rules are insane.
If you’re a rich enough hotel magnate you can buy off the people writing the compliance shit and/or the inspectors, I guess.
I was thinking you’d leave/preserve the original leaded window and fit another inside. Castles have thick walls.
I want a castle
