Escape to the Chateau’s Dick and Angel Strawbridge reveal ‘peaceful’ change at home

Spring has sprung at the Château de la Motte-Husson! Taking to Instagram on Saturday, the Strawbridge family shared new photos of their 19th-century home, which was covered in beautiful blooms.

Documenting the change, Dick and Angel wrote: “Peaceful spring mornings at the Chateau. Can’t get enough of cherry blossoms and spring flowers.” 

Among the comments, fans commended the Strawbridges on their beautiful home, which they originally purchased for £280,000 in 2015. “The gorgeous Chateau in all her magical glory! Never visited, but it would be such a bucket list dream come true!” wrote one. 

© Instagram

“This home is so magical, I love it,” noted a second. Meanwhile, a third mused: “Beautiful, how lovely it must be to stroll around the gardens at the Chateau.” 

The Château de la Motte-Husson’s dreamy gardens

A huge 45-room property, the chateau – which is located in the Pays de la Loire, France – sits on 12 acres of parkland, and it also comes with a walled garden, a stable block, and an orangery. 

© Dick and Angel Strawbridge

Speaking about the latter, the family’s official website states that they’ve managed to get their citrus trees “thriving again” after “many decades of neglect”. 

© Channel 4

“We have an orangery, with which we fell in love when we walked around the property waiting for the estate agent to arrive,” Angel and Dick recalled. Ours is relatively simple, but we love it, and it was big enough to entertain eighty guests during our wedding breakfasts. 

A decade of renovations

Hailed as their “forever home”, Dick and Angel have spent the past decade renovating the Château de la Motte-Husson, with help from their kids, Arthur and Dorothy. 

Joining HELLO! for an exclusive interview in December 2023, Dick, 65, said: “This is the long haul. We’ve had lots of people saying, ‘Oh, they’re selling’, but this is our forever home, and Arthur and Dorthy know that, and we plan for the future. 

“When we’ve been away on tours and then we come back, it’s stable. We’ve been here for nine years. I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere for nine years of my life in one place. But the chateau just feels permanent. And it has a permanency that is to be enjoyed.” 

“We’ve not done anything that we didn’t think was right in the long run, and I think that is the key part to it,” Angel, 46, chimed in. 

“The first year was the hardest, but we couldn’t have done it any differently,” added Dick. “I was working away a lot, and Angel had to run the renovations. It was a very different year because I needed to get the income to get us started and jump-start everything.”