sleeping beauty

In-demand cook and decorator Isabelle Moltzer helps revive a 16th-century estate that had long belonged to her family and finds a home of her own in the process

- IAN PHILLIPS 

When Isabelle Moltzer’s parents reluctantly sold the Domaine de Bailleul in Normandy in 2011, she believed she would never return. “It was nightmarish,” she recalls. “It took two months to move everything out.” What made it particularly traumatic was that the 50-hectare property had been in the family since the mid 16th century, when its château was built by one of her ancestors, Bertrand de Bailleul (he is said to have welcomed Mary, Queen of Scots, there). “My attachment to the estate is visceral,” says Moltzer.

For years afterward, she avoided going anywhere near and deliberately made detours when passing through the region. Now, a curious twist of fate not only finds her back working at Bailleul, but also ecstatically ensconced in her childhood home— an outbuilding called La Maison Normande, or the Norman House, which she uses mainly for vacations and weekend getaways. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” she admits. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

In the role not quite of Prince Charming, but rather a benevolent benefactor, is Ranga Brossais Doliger, who acquired the domaine in 2018. The previous owner, a Russian businessman, had more or less left it abandoned. The gardens were overgrown and the outbuildings in a state of dilapidation. “It was like the castle in Beauty and the Beast,” Brossais Doliger says, insisting that he didn’t buy it to live there. He already owned another château nearby. Instead, he simply wanted to restore it to its former glory and planned to rent the outbuildings. “When I first visited, I had an uncanny feeling, as if I’d lived there in the past,” he recalls.