- Sibylle Thomke, a Swiss architect, bought a 19th-century château in France with her savings in 2017.
- She spent three years renovating it and the outbuildings on the property, which she lists on Airbnb.
- After opening the château in June 2021, she now rents out rooms for between $190 and $600 a night.
Sibylle Thomke, a Swiss architect, first set eyes on the Château de Sibra in Lagarde, Occitanie, France, in January 2017. When she told her French friends that she was looking for a holiday home, they said they knew of the perfect property for her — if she was willing to put in the work. Her plans for a simple vacation spot changed when she saw the building.
"The garden hadn't been taken care of for the last 50 years," Thomke told Insider. "The grounds had turned into a jungle, and the lakes had dried up." When she stepped into the the 19th-century château's hallway, she found it was just as dilapidated — the wallpaper peeled off the walls, and owls lived in the roof.
Despite all this, Thomke saw potential. "Everything was original," Thomke said. "Even though the château was in bad shape, it was a huge archive, which was quite amazing."
Thomke declined to share the purchase price, but she said that the property was a bargain. "You could buy a three-bedroom apartment in Zurich for the price that I paid for this property," Thomke said. "It was in a sad shape. A lot of people were afraid of it." Thomke bought the Château de Sibra that spring with her savings and started renovating the property in fall 2018.
On June 18, 2021, Thomke and her team opened the grounds for guests, and she now rents rooms in the château and the apartments for between $190 and $600 a night. She shared what the renovation process was like with Insider.
Finding a 'red thread' to tie it together
Thomke decided to turn the two outbuildings on the property into holiday apartments first so she could spend more time working on the château. "My biggest concern was how to make sense of the château," Thomke said. "At the beginning, it looked like a collage of so many different disparate elements. I needed to find that 'red thread' that would tie it all together."
She took time to analyze the building. In her research, Thomke learned that the railway baron Joseph Villary de Fajac and his wife, Pauline, had turned a tiny 13th-century estate into a grand estate with the château when they bought the land in 1878. Their aim was to marry agriculture and beauty — they wanted a practical farm in a picturesque parkland. Thomke's goal soon became taking the tired property and turning it into a place that the De Fajacs would've recognized.
While Thomke had a strong network of artisans at home, she had to find new contacts in France. "It became an adventurous journey, and I met some really amazing people," Thomke said. From the local plasterer, Monsieur Denis — who Thomke said became the "house ghost" because he spent 18 months walking from room to room always covered in white plaster — to the mural restorer Madame Lafitte, the renovation was a joint project from the start.
Getting started on renovations
Thomke started by reworking the flow of the château and giving it a lobby, rather than using the kitchen door as the entrance. She also wanted to make sure that the footprint and changes were as light as possible to keep the property close to its original form — for example, when she installed bathrooms in the suites, she chose to place the shower, basin, and toilet in freestanding structures that can be removed in the future if someone wanted to return the property to its original state.
As a collector of furniture, it didn't take Thomke long to furnish the château. She restored two sofas each of her grandmothers once owned, which she brought from Switzerland to France and blended with more modern furnishings from Switzerland, France, and Italy. The purchase of a wood-fired heating system surprised her most. "I thought it was outrageously expensive, as it cost 50% more than it would've cost in Switzerland," she said. She bought it anyway because it's environmentally friendly.
One of the most unique parts of the château is a mural in the dining room that the De Fajacs commissioned an artist to paint in 1883. The De Fajacs asked the artist to paint a landscape image of how the park could look in the future, Thomke said.
Seeing it as a blueprint for her renovation, Thomke chose the Berlin-based landscape architect Thilo Folkerts to bring the painting to life. The team took three years to turn the 37-acre grounds back into an elegant park complete with the foliage represented in the painting. "We found a heritage tree that Joseph Villary de Fajac had written about planting," Thomke said. "We also found a small pavilion that was completely overgrown, which we restored."
Staffing up
The château is available for bookings through the boutique-hotel company Welcome Beyond, and the apartments are listed on Airbnb. As they offer the luxury of a dinner service four nights a week at the château, Thomke chose not to place it on Airbnb. To publicize the launch, Thomke said, she spoke to French and Swiss publications, ran campaigns on Instagram, and worked with tourist offices in the region.
She found the property's housekeeper, gardener, chef, and host via referrals. To boost staffing numbers during the busy summer months, she also reached out to the local hotel schools in the area to offer internships to their students.
During the first three months, the Château de Sibra welcomed 150 guests. Thomke said that as COVID-19 numbers started to rise during July and August 2021, there was a looming that fear lockdown might happen again, so their apartments seemed to be the suites of choice. However, now the château's rooms are full again, she said, and the property only currently has spaces available in the apartments.
It's not just the guests who have seen what a difference Thomke has made. "My neighbor came by a couple of weeks ago when I was at the property for the summer and he said, 'I get this feeling that it's not just you who found this property, but this property found you.'"