Chateau de la Place Holiday House

The Chateau de la Place is a huge breath-taking 19th century building in the heart of the beautiful village of Saint-Fort-sur-Gironde. The striking property has been lovingly refurbished while retaining many of its original features; marble entrance hall and fireplaces, stained glass windows, ornate ceilings, original parquet floors and carved wooden panelled walls. The house covers 650 square metres. It has a total of 34 rooms over 3 floors and sleeps 22.

The front of the house faces the main square (hence the name, ‘de la place’) where there is a delightful Saturday market. The grand front door leads you into the stunning entrance hall with high, beautiful ceilings and inlaid floors.

Owners Huw & Cathy Thomas were planning new websites for the Chateau and their other holiday cottages at Font Remy. Feedback from guests lead them to the conclusion that the current imagery on the website was not doing the Chateau justice. They needed a better way to showcase the house and demonstrate the beauty, the space, the facilities and allure.

Huw has been working with Striking Places through his marketing agencies, thebestof Welwyn and Hatfield and thebestof St Albans and Harpenden. Jo and a Google Street View Trusted virtual tour was his first thought.

Because of the share size of the chateau, Huw and Cathy carefully considered the route the tour would take. They opted to take the viewer into the house through the grand entrance hall. To one side a large sitting room leads to a second, a room colourfully lit by the intricate stained glass windows. On the opposite side is a library with 4,000 books. Walk through to the back and the immediate outside area houses a large dining space and hot tub. The vast lawn gives onto the swimming pool area. The old servants stairs wind right up to the roof at the back of the house. Go further and a small roof terrace provides a perfect place to watch the sunset over an evening kir royale. The rooftop views over the village and surrounding countryside are spectacular.

The virtual tour of Chateau de la Place portrays it’s grandeur, beauty, decor and elegance.
Cathy said “We have 50% of all guests returning, so clearly once they have visited they fall in love with the house and return. We really want to share how visually beautiful Chateau de la Place is. The virtual tour means that potential customers can get as close as possible to the experience of actually being here.”

The first stage of our work always involves verifying the Google My Business page for the business. Although Chateau de la Place has only been live on Google Maps for just under three months the Google Insights show some very promising results.

In the first 90 days the listing has had 1,544 views
725 customers found the business via Google Search
819 customers found the business via Google Maps
 
Cathy Thomas | Owner | Font Remy Holiday Cottages
“We were trying to work out how best to show off the beauty of the place. It’s a crowded market. We needed to be noticed. We had to do something independently. Having a virtual tour of Chateau de la Place gives you a much better idea of the space, both outside and in. Also anyone looking on google maps will be able to look around. It gives us a great edge. I was really impressed with how quickly and thoroughly Jo worked, and how she made the most out of a limited timeframe, given the weather constraints.”
 
Interesting Fact #212: The château is the birthplace and home of one of the most important French writers of his era, Pierre-Henri Simon.