Christchurch couple Wayne and Diane Wright have treasured their French connection for many years. Photo / George Heard
A lifelong dream of owning a French chateau has left a Kiwi couple desperate to sell as they both face stage 4 cancer.
Retired antique dealer Wayne Wright bought Chateau de la Blaynie on an impulse.
The seven-bedroom chateau, on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Lot River, in the medieval village of Albas in the southwest of France, was everything he and his wife Diane had dreamed of.
Since buying the 19th-century property in 2019, Wright, 81, has filled the rooms with period furnishings he’s hunted down in antique markets or bought from larger dealers. But now, the Christchurch couple’s dream is over as both of them battle stage 4 cancer.
A year after their first summer at the chateau, Diane developed a second round of breast cancer, which has since metastasised to her spine and liver. In 2021, Wayne was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and is now dealing with other health issues.
Reluctantly, the couple realise their beloved chateau in the Midi-Pyrenees has to be sold. “If my illness goes to a certain stage, I don’t want to leave Diane with a massive problem, which it would be for one person,” says Wayne.
This year, for the first time, they’ve been unable to travel to Albas. While French-based friends have pulled together to help look after the chateau and care for the garden, it’s unclear whether the Wrights will ever be able to return.
“That’s the bit that you try not to think about because it’s been such a part of our lives,” says Diane. “It’s not like we go for a holiday, it’s our other life. The friends we have there are our family.
“Some people should know better when they’re in their 70s to pile all their money into a chateau in France. It’s been a lifelong dream – but dreams don’t last forever.”
The 3816sq m property, which includes a swimming pool, two kitchens, a wine cellar in the tower, and a forest that runs down to the river, has been listed with an asking price of just under €1 million (close to NZ$2 million).
The stone chateau was built by Napoleon III – Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew – for his Inspector of Armies. Although the home has been refurbished, it retains many of its original features, including marble fireplaces in every room.
Downstairs, a large “winter kitchen” was used by the previous owners as a cooking school, and an ancient safe where gold bullion was once stored still sits in a gated dungeon off the cellar.
“Having a chateau in France, it does create an image of people who are wealthy and rolling in it, and we’re not. We’re absolutely not,” says Diane, who turned 75 this year on Bastille Day, July 14.
“It’s a huge worry, particularly for me. Bad health has come upon us so quickly. The sooner we sell it, the better, for a whole pile of reasons. But it will be the saddest day, I know, because we both love it.”
However, French real estate agents are notoriously laissez-faire, as cook and author Peta Mathias discovered when she put her apartment in Uzes, southern France, on the market early this year.
The number of New Zealanders owning second homes in France is on the rise, and the Wrights hope another energetic Kiwi couple with a dream of owning a chateau will replace them.
Friends who’ve stayed with them over the years include Mathias, NZ Fashion Week founder Dame Pieter Stewart, and fashion designer Dame Trelise Cooper, who now has her own place in Toulouse with husband Jack.
Wayne began exploring his own French connection in the early 70s, tracking down relatives in France and spending time there to escape the Southern Hemisphere winter. His ancestors arrived in New Zealand in 1840 on the Comte de Paris, which carried the first French settlers to Akaroa.
In 1997, he and Diane, his second wife, were married at the American Cathedral in Paris, requiring special permission from the Anglican Archdeacon of France because neither of them is Catholic.
The couple owned a house in Ussel, another medieval village about 200km to the north, for many years before Chateau de la Blaynie caught Wayne’s eye. For him, it was a romantic dream come true.
“A beautiful wife and a beautiful house,” he says, with a twinkle.
Far from being born into a life of privilege, Wayne never knew his father and was passed from relative to relative as a child, attending 11 different schools before leaving at the age of 14.
An uncle took him into the buying and selling trade in Timaru, and he eventually moved into antiques, specialising in pieces from England and France.
Diane was married to a high-country farmer for 25 years before moving to Christchurch, where she had a shop in Merivale Mall. Wayne’s antique store was right across the road; they met when she came in looking to buy some dress furniture for her shop.
In 2011, the Canterbury earthquake damaged both their home and business premises beyond repair. The couple decamped to Auckland but have since returned to Christchurch to be closer to Wayne’s children and grandchildren.
About 1000 people live in the village of Albas, which is in the Occitanie region and has a guinguette (a bar with live music) that opens in summer. A nine-hole golf course in partnership with local vineyards is planned on a property just across the river.
The French way of life remains deeply ingrained there, says Diane. Only a generation or two ago, people still came down into the valley on horseback to wash their clothes in the river.
Kiwis are welcome – “They see us as allies, through and through” – but cultural offences such as consuming food in the street or walking barefoot remain taboo.
“You go to the markets, you eat, you drink and then you eat some more. It’s what every French programme tells you,” says Diane.
“When I’m over there, I go for a walk through the forest every single morning, no matter the weather.
“The sky can be a really moody, dark grey-blue with a front coming in, but the fields are still that gold and green, and you can almost see Joan of Arc riding across with her legions.”
Joanna Wane is an award-winning senior lifestyle writer with a special interest in social issues and the arts.