Last-minute gift idea: How about a piece of this 800-year-old castle

If you’re still short for last-minute Christmas gift ideas, you can always give those you love a piece of a 13th century French château.

After a castle in the French region of Grand Cognac started to crumble, French preservation and restoration groups started a crowdfunding campaign in which anyone can buy a piece of the castle for 50 euros, or around $55. Those who invest in the Château de Vibrac will receive a garden plot with their name on it, lifetime access to the castle grounds as well as voting rights on decisions relating to the castle’s future.

French preservation and restoration groups led a crowdfunding campaign in which anyone can buy a piece of a ninth-century castle for $55.

The Château de Vibrac sits on an island and was once home to French nobility.

Those who invest get a garden plot with their name on it, lifetime access to its grounds as well as voting rights about the castle's future.

The restoration companies hope to make the castle grounds fit for community events, organic gardening and even eco-friendly cabins for the guests.

But before that happens, they need to raise enough money to fight the vegetation that has been gathering the chateau over years of sieges and abandonment.

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The Chateau, which spans 12 acres on the island of Charente and was once home to French nobility, has been sitting abandoned for more than a century. To restore the castle, Dartagnans.fr and preservation association Adopte un château are attempting to raise more than a million euros by selling partial ownership rights. So far people from more than 45 countries have raised more than 175,000 euros, according to CNN.

With the funding, the campaign seeks to restore the castle grounds for community events, organic gardening and eco-friendly guest cabins. But before that happens, the organizations need to raise enough cash to control the vegetation currently popping up all over the chateau. The castle has been sold off, besieged and sitting abandoned from the Renaissance to today and, as a result, has some signs of decay on its walls and interior.

This isn’t the first time that Daertagnans and Adopte un château have crowdfunded ownership rights to French chateaus. Mothe-Chandenier in Northern France and Ebaupinay in the Deux-Sevres region were both purchased by the organizations and then sold off to those interested in owning a part of history.

Email Veronika Bondarenko

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