Reawakening a French Chateau – Felicity Selkirk’s Remarkable Journey

Felicity Selkirk (1992) and her husband, former Victorian politician Tim Holding, restoring a 105-room château in France was never part of the plan. But when Tim stepped away from politics, the couple sought a new adventure, eventually settling in Paris before searching for a property in the French countryside.

In 2020, they purchased Château de Purnon, a vast 18th-century estate just south of the Loire Valley. The château was rich in history but in dire need of restoration, with a leaking roof and decaying interiors threatening its survival.

Thanks to years of determination, the immense roof restoration project is expected to be completed before the end of the year, after four years of work making the estate watertight for the first time in decades. This milestone will allow Felicity and Tim to begin the painstaking process of restoring the interiors. To share their journey, the couple launched a YouTube channel documenting the challenges and triumphs of breathing new life into the château.

As Felicity explains, the project is about legacy: “It isn’t possible to do everything in our lifetime, but what we can do is preserve and protect as much as we can. That will be our legacy.”