This Abandoned French Castle Is the Fixer-Upper of a Lifetime

Photo: Chateau de Gudanes Five years ago, Karina and Craig Waters -- a tax accountant and a urologist, respectively, in Perth, Australia -- began looking for a vacation home in the south of France. Karina says she envisioned "a small farmhouse," the sort of simple, "shabby-chic" cottage so often invoked in fantasies of French countryside living. On their real estate hunt, however, the Waters couple visited a long string of homes whose rural charm had been replaced by modern luxuries. Whereas the...