Château de Balleure is a 14th century château which has been in the family of Pierre Balvay since the end of the French revolution. It sits proudly in the center of a hamlet in southern Burgundy.
When Pierre and Nicole married, many decades ago, Pierre casually mentioned to Nicole that
he had a “second home in Burgundy”. When he drove her there, she was astonished to discover that the “second home” was an elegant castle in a state of near ruin; there wasn’t even a bathroom. For the next 30 or so years, they labored with love and patience to restore the château to a modern home. That renovation included converting the top floor into an apartment for close friends, who later moved away. We stumbled upon that apartment, which became our home when we rather impulsively moved to France from Charleston, South Carolina. Nicole and Pierre became our new French family, and we became the luckiest transplants ever.
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