Starter Castles!

The New York Times Magazine had a piece today about starter castles in Europe. Due to the current economic conditions, you can pick someone’s left-over castle for a song… This are just cheap little things, beginning at about $1 million! 

Killahara Castle, County Tipperary, Ireland 
Original asking price: $1.53 million. Current asking price: $1.25 million.The Irish writer Tom O’Neill and his restoration-specialist friend Noel Ryan bought this 16th-century Irish castle in 2006 and undertook a thorough conservation effort — renovating the building to a comfortable standard while doing the minimum amount of structural change. Including the restoration, O’Neill and Ryan spent more than $1.25 million on the castle; at its current asking price, they would not quite break even.

Medieval chateau, Lot-et-Garonne, France
Original asking price: $4 million. Current asking price: $2.8 million.The medieval chateau was bought as a second home in 2002 by a financier and his interior-decorator wife. It has seven bedrooms and is an hour and a half from Bordeaux and Toulouse. It has been fully renovated and contains old and new touches: exposed-beam ceilings, chunky oak doors, high-end bathrooms with heated towel rails, even secret staircases.

Castle Altdöbern, Brandenburg, Germany
Asking price: NegotiableOnce the home of a Jewish cigarette manufacturer who fled the Nazis, this ornate castle with more than 50 rooms dates to the early 1700s and sits in a wooded area about 80 miles south of Berlin.

After the end of the Second World War, it served as a retirement home and kindergarten before falling into disuse. The efforts of a number of investors to transform the castle into an upscale hotel or a tourist attraction have failed over several decades.

The building is now owned by a castles’ association, which is extensively renovating the interior with the hope of readying it for a potential occupant.

To see several of the other ‘starter castles’, please click here.