Many of you, I’m sure, have heard the expression, “A man’s home is his castle.”
For longtime Sea Oaks resident Dan Hazelton, the opposite was true: His castle was his home.
For nearly 15 years – until he moved to Vero Beach in 2000 – Hazelton and his family lived in a French chateau that dates back to the 11th century and is, he believes, one of the world’s oldest inhabitable buildings.
“When I was 8 years old, my father moved us to Paris and, as a child, I was fascinated by castles,” said Hazelton, now 73. “It became my lifelong dream to own one.”
After completing his education in the U.S. and returning to Paris in the late 1960s for a job as a financial advisor with an American-based firm, Hazelton would spend weekends traveling the French countryside and looking at castles for sale.
There were dozens of them.
“None that I could afford, of course,” he said, “but I was royally entertained.”
It wasn’t until 1981 – after working in New York, California, Montana and Arizona, enjoying tremendous success in business and real-estate ventures – that Hazelton had the financial means to make his childhood dream a reality if the right castle was for sale.
Then came the opportunity: He saw a Wall Street Journal advertisement for an historic, medieval chateau in the picturesque valley of St. Pierre-en-Faucigny in the high country of eastern France, 30 minutes southeast of Geneva, Switzerland.
The 30,000-square-foot castle – the original three-story tower predates the main building, which was added in the mid-1600s – sits atop a hill on 13.4 private and peaceful acres that include woods, a stream and beautiful gardens. The site offers spectacular views of green valleys and the snow-capped French Alps.
Partnering with the late Edward Stone, a close friend and John’s Island resident who founded one of America’s top land-planning and landscape-architecture firms, Hazelton purchased the Chateau d’Arcine 35 years ago with the intent of transforming the property into a corporate retreat for lease.
They bought the stunning property from a Sarasota man for $265,000.
“We spent far more restoring it,” Hazelton said. “When we bought it, the place had been uninhabited for a long time. It was empty, and there was some rotted wood, fallen plaster and broken windows. And the roof leaked.
“So we had to put some work into it to put it back together,” he added. “Other than the roof, though, the building was structurally sound. And a previous owner had put a lot of money into it before we bought it. The plumbing was done and there was heat.”
A year into the project, Hazelton had a change of heart: He no longer wanted to lease the property; he wanted to live there.
“As a family, we fell in love with the place,” he said, “so I went to Ed, told him what I wanted to do and bought him out.”
Having spent a chunk of his childhood in Paris, where he also attended school, Hazelton wanted give his three sons the opportunity to enjoy a similar experience – even though his wife, Donna, was a Georgia native who didn’t speak French.
At the time, the family was living in the fast-growing Phoenix area, and Hazelton and his wife had become concerned about stories they were hearing from friends and neighbors about local youths and drugs.
So, in 1985, Hazelton left his job in Arizona, moved the family to France and started his own business in Geneva, working with Swiss banks.
“We wanted to raise our kids cross-culturally,” Hazelton said, referring to Brook, Whit and Dan Jr. “So when we moved, we went full-immersion with the kids. They attended the International School of Geneva, where they were the only Americans enrolled, and learned very quickly to speak French.”
For those who don’t know, the popular International Baccalaureate program was founded at the Swiss school in the mid-1960s.
The boys’ global education didn’t end there, though: In 1987 and again in 1989, Hazelton rented the chateau and moved the family to Kenya, where he and his wife did not-for-profit work while their sons attended a missionary school.
“As a family, living in France and Kenya and the United States has been a great experiment,” Hazelton said. “The kids learned to be global citizens who lived with people of difference cultures, and they all got into great schools.”
Brook and Whit graduated from Princeton University – Brook, 42, is now the president of Christie’s in New York, while Whit, who turns 39 next month, is the marketing director for the New York-based Christian Union – and Dan Jr., 36, has a degree from Denison University, his father’s alma mater, and is working in real estate in Costa Rica.
It’s somewhat ironic that his sons’ relocation as adults to other parts of the world has prompted Hazelton to make a difficult decision: He’s selling the chateau, which he put on the market earlier this year with an asking price of $3.2 million.
“The only reason we’re selling it is because the kids aren’t there very often,” Hazelton said. “Brook was going to buy it – he moved his family there for two years, essentially for the same reason we did – but his wife loves New York.
“I’m very attached to the place, so this isn’t easy, but we have homes here, in Maine, in the Bahamas and in Costa Rica, so we need to downsize a bit,” he added. “We’ve gotten a few calls, but it’s a soft sell.
“We’re planning on being there next summer.”
Hazelton said he and his wife usually spend May through July at the five-bedroom chateau, often entertaining friends, particularly those from Vero Beach. Two of his local tennis buddies, Basketball Hall of Fame member Cliff Hagen and International Tennis Federation honoree King Van Nostrand, have visited the castle with their wives.
Until the chateau sells, Hazelton said, it’s also available to be leased for vacations.
“I think people in Vero Beach would enjoy it,” he said. “It’s a wonderful location and not far from the Geneva airport.”
So if you’ve got $3 million to spend and want to live like a king, a man’s castle can be your home.
