Hacker News Reader

France is not big on billionaires pet project... Also, a lot of the hard work is done by volunteers!

Many rich people (French and not French) own nice French castles. Some very expensively renovated. But they are often not interested in medieval castles. In the kind of projects documented here, the journey is the goal. I'm not even sure they really want to complete it, when something is done there is always a next thing to do. People spend time there for the community, the craft, the connection to elements and history.

In a real castle every generation of lords would remodel it to fit their current needs/wants/budget and so they would often be under construction.

Of course a real castle would probably have been made of wood which is both easier to remodel and also needs it anyway as wood burns and rots over time. (in turn meaning most castles have left no evidence they ever existed other than what is in the local records) What we see is the small minority built of stone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com