“Why did you build this place?”

Sometimes when people visit the Chateau de Lis they hardly have the words to form the question. They don’t want to be rude, but they just have to know. Let me assure you, I often ask myself the same question: Why?

The “why” goes back quite a few years. We took a vacation with our kids down the coast of Oregon and California on Highway 1 to my hometown of Ojai for a reunion of many old friends. This was in about 2001, I believe. While there, we stayed with some friends who were my parents age who had raised 10 children in an enormous Spanish mansion that had been built by a tile merchant in the early 1900s. Ojai, although a very small and almost unknown town about 90 minutes north of Los Angeles and 15 minutes from the Ventura beaches, has long been home to many rich and famous people who have come and gone from that secluded and beautiful place. Several old and stunning mansions hide in the hills behind giant oaks and have wonderful stories to tell. This was one of those places.

By the time we stayed with the Hunters, their children were grown and raising families of their own, but they often gathered in their family home where they each had a room and a pile of sleeping pads for their children. This idea captivated John (and I), and he declared that some day he would build such a place for our families to gather as well. John and I have six children and 11 grandchildren (so far), and he comes from a family of eight siblings, a few with six and seven children as well, and I and my brother and sister have 16 cousins between us, so a gathering place for reunions serves us well.

The truth is, however, that we didn’t have to build a medieval castle for this purpose; it could have been a bunk house! Once the dream started to become a reality, however, the chateau became a labor of love for John, something he could pour all of his creative energies into. There was so much to learn about everything that we have researched and developed over the years, and it became his passion and his hobby. His enthusiasm and force of personality were impossible to resist, so I found myself looking up from my sewing or writing or gardening to offer a suggestion here and there, or when he pulled me into a project. We have, of course, collaborated on the major decisions, but just as often we have divided and conquered in various spaces to get things accomplished.

John is very “hands on.” He can usually be found striding around the property in filthy jeans and t-shirt at all times of the year and in all weather, from dawn to dusk, fixing sprinklers or pouring a concrete pad or figuring out his next project. We have a lot of discussions about hiring the help we need for the building and maintenance of the chateau, but he enjoys hard, physical labor and learning new things. It is a mystery to him why anyone would pay someone else to do something that he can do himself, or learn to do with a little research and effort. I think the only thing that has stopped him from doing everything himself is the scope of work that he envisioned: even he had to admit that there weren’t enough lifetimes to master the skills and execute a project of this size.

Just this morning, as it was too cold and snowy for him to go out and work on some project or another, he spent the day researching doors for the cloister garden, storing marvelous pictures of ancient doors into a computer file, pouring over the details of clavos nails, hinge straps, locking mechanisms, ring pulls, and metal edgings. He has a never-ending supply of ideas, details, and projects yet to incorporate into the chateau.

So, that is the “why.” Some people golf, some people collect stamps, some people travel . . . we built a  fairy tale castle for the fun of it, to enjoy special times with our families, old friends, and the new ones we are constantly making.