Great escapes in faded French wineries

Karl O’Hanlon is at it again. The Dublin-born developer’s French company, Domaine & Demeure, has acquired another chateau in Hérault to transform into something special – an elegant combination of hotel, holiday homes and vineyards producing Languedoc wine.

He’s done it already with Château les Carasses, a late 19th century conical-turreted fantasy near Capestang, on the Canal du Midi. Now his focus is on Château St Pierre de Serjac, near Espondeilhan, where his father Redmond once part-owned a holiday home with the late Terry Keane.

Attractions in the area include Narbonne, with its wonderful covered market; Béziers, which has a 13th-century cathedral and a highly regarded Musée des Beaux Arts; and the fortified town of Carcassonne, which is served by Ryanair. Aer Lingus flies directly to Toulouse.

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A computer generation of what Château de la Durantie will look like after its renovation

O’Hanlon’s thinks his latest project will appeal to well- heeled retirees who haven’t lost their money on bank shares or highly-leveraged buy-to-let investments. “I sold the first duplex to an English couple and the second to Americans. Eleven are gone now,” he says.

Other developers who looked at Château St Pierre de Serjac two years ago wanted to build 400 houses on the 85-hectare estate, but the local mayor wouldn’t hear of it. “When we said we’d work with the existing fabric, the mayor was prepared to get behind it.”

“People are quick to criticise France, but there’s a lot of sensible thinking about how the country works,” O’Hanlon says. “For example, a bank will only finance a project if you have 70 per cent of the units pre-sold. They’ll only give you funding if people are prepared to buy into it.”

His latest project is being co-financed by his partners, Bonfils, a firm of French wine-makers founded by pieds noirs from Algeria, and by forward-selling the 36 residential units to be installed at the chateau and its evocative collection of outbuildings.

The same financing model is being followed by British developers David Boden and Tony Dowse for another chateau-based development in the Tarn, between Toulouse and Albi, where Château de la Durantie will become the clubhouse for a scheme of 53 new-build holiday villas.

Boden has his own beautifully refurbished chateau just outside Castelnau-de-Montmiral, not far from the Durantie property, so he has a consuming interest in “getting it right”. His wife Jeanne, a former military trainer at Sandhurst, is also a member of the municipal council.

Rowse and the Bodens visited O’Hanlon’s Château Les Carasses and were impressed. “There are things we’d do differently – all of our homes will have private gardens that won’t be overlooked,” David Boden says.

Passion for Languedoc
O'Hanlon, whose father became a respected wine writer, is passionate about Languedoc wine and knows its history well. "Our focus is on finding old underperforming wineries with great buildings," he says. Quality, rather than quantity, is his mantra for the future.

Most of the wine chateaux in Hérault date from the 1890s, a period of peak production, and several of the more romantic ones were designed by Louis-Michel Garros, an architect from Bordeaux. “I get excited when I see them because they’re always in the best locations.”

Château St Pierre de Serjac has panoramic views over the countryside and lots of mature trees, including a canopy of Mediterranean pine, several cypress and a pair of tall palms. It has retained all of its original features intact, having been owned by the barons de Crozals since 1890.

With his architect, François Thoulouze, O’Hanlon will be working with the essence of the estate, retaining its winery and converting other buildings such as the winemaker’s house, forge, granary and grape picker’s lodgings, which still have graffiti in Spanish on their walls.

Only one new block will be added, to create a U-shaped courtyard, and this will be done in the same style using similar materials. “There are people who’ve been dreaming for 15 years of buying a property in the south of France, so we’re in the dream business,” he says.

O’Hanlon says he wouldn’t undertake a project like Château de la Durantie because it involves so much new-build, with all of the villas slated for construction in a two-hectare meadow not far from its outbuildings. He now prefers to concentrate on reworking the past.

But the meadow is zoned for tourism-related development – and Castelnau’s mayor, Paul Salvador, is backing the scheme, having asked the Bodens to take a look at it, after being unimpressed with an earlier plan by other developers to lay out the housing in rows.

"The cluster is a very natural layout here," says David Boden, referencing the fortified hill towns and villages throughout the Tarn, known as bastides, and to the way farm buildings are arranged in a verdant undulating landscape that's been compared favourably to Tuscany.

'Lonely' expats
Dowse says they came up with the idea of turning the chateau into a country club after commissioning a survey which showed that one in five British expatriates in the Tarn returned home within five years: they didn't speak French or integrate with the locals and got "lonely".

The neo-classical chateau, dating from 1890, will have a restaurant, bar and other facilities. The outbuildings will be converted and extended to provide an indoor swimming pool, spa and conference centre so that Château de la Durantie can become a year-round destination.

Among those with holiday homes in the Tarn are BBC chairman Chris Patten, English soprano Leslie Garrett and actor Derek Jacobi. “People think it’s up on the Massif Central, but Albi is actually on the same latitude as Nice or Avignon,” says long-time resident David Boden.

Although far from the sea, the area has plenty of attractions, such as the great brick pile of Albi Cathedral, with its extraordinary decorated interior, or the bastide town of Cordes-sur-Ciel, which provided secure shelter for generations during the Tarn's more turbulent times.

There are four Michelin-star restaurants in the area, including the superb L’Esprit du Vin in Albi. The local wine from Gaillac, mostly made from lesser-known grape varieties such as Duras, Mauzac and Ondenc, is cheap and pleasantly drinkable, and there’s a lot of artisan produce.

As with Karl O’Hanlon’s schemes, investors who buy into Château de la Durantie will be able to rent out their villas through the management company when they’re not in residence themselves – minus a 20 per cent cut of the rental income, to cover marketing and services.