Wordly Wise

All their married life, Rupert and Dagmar have been moving around the world for Rupert’s work, spending time in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

- Penny Botting

“Wherever Rupert’s job took us and wherever we were, we always enjoyed picking up antique furnishings, fabrics, and souvenirs along the way,” says Dagmar. “Over the years, we’ve collected traditional Omani wood and brass chests and silver jewellery, nomadic tribal carpets from Iran and Afghanistan, Chinese and Nepalese wardrobes, and Balinese tables.”

More recently, the couple lived in the Far East (Borneo, Malaysia, and Indonesia), as well as Australia and Holland. “We have always enjoyed collecting local antiques and curiosities along the way in some form or another. In fact, sometimes we get so carried away, each house has had to be a bit bigger than the last to fit everything in,” says Dagmar.

HOLIDAY TO PERMANENT HOME

One of their earlier homes was a holiday house high up in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in southeast France, where they spent family holidays between 1990 and 2004. More recently, when living in The Hague, Holland, and anticipating an early retirement, they started to look for a home in the Provence area. After a few exploratory visits, they decided to try looking further west around Bordeaux and Bergerac. “On our first foray into this region, we fell in love with this 15th-century château,” says Dagmar.

“The property was large enough to accommodate our family as well as the furniture from our previous house, in Jakarta, but more importantly it had a beautiful, calming atmosphere,” she says. “There’s a great layout, and luckily the interior wasn’t overly renovated – it still retained many of its original features and charm, including high ceilings, original flooring, early built-in wardrobes, original decorative cast-iron radiators, and lots of natural light that floods in from the 10-foot tall south-facing windows.”