There it stands along a small road in the Médoc, behind wrought iron gates and a row of palm trees. Château Réal, a former mansion built in 1800 by a high-ranking Napoleonic officer – a certain Mr. Réal, therefore – was acquired a few years later by the Tronquoy family. She made it a wine estate and retained ownership for six generations.
In 2020, Kelly and Elian Travaini, a couple in their thirties tired of their Parisian life, opened a new chapter by buying the place to transform it into a guest house. They welcome an international clientele, coming from the United States, Argentina, Finland and elsewhere to discover the wine route and taste the “French art of living”. Guests also arrive from all over France, including Bordeaux and its surrounding areas, to take a break in the great outdoors.
From the Gironde capital, the road winds through vineyards and castles and notably crosses the famous Château Margaux estate. From the Pauillac marina, we follow the left bank of the Gironde estuary, lined with squares, these colorful huts equipped with winches and large fishing nets emblematic of the region. A few kilometers in the heart of an oak forest, a passage over a lock and crossing the village of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne constitute the last stages before arriving at Kelly and Elian Travaini’s house.
To the happiness of squirrels and woodpeckers
At the back of the castle, out of sight, a swimming pool surrounded by stone slabs, banana trees, parasols and deckchairs allows guests, in the summer, to swim in the middle of the large green park, under the song of nightingales. A large pine, cedar and Chinese walnut delight squirrels and woodpeckers. The property no longer includes vines, but the wine from those growing opposite, on the other side of the road, has kept the name Château Réal. You can also buy a few bottles on site. The young lords completely renovated the building. “We moved in a little before the first confinement and took advantage of this period to start the work ourselves,” Elian explains.
An engineer by training, he rethinks the layouts, while Kelly, passionate about interior design, chooses the materials, colors and furniture. Everywhere, they removed the dated wallpaper, replaced the parquet floors attacked by termites with a new herringbone model, but kept the Gironde tiles on the floor in the entrance. On the ground floor, in the breakfast room, bistro tables and chairs take place next to the fireplace, under a hand-painted ceiling from the beginning of the 20th century.
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