Renting a château for a weekend means gathering everyone you love under one roof, with no neighbours and no set timetables. At the Château de la Huberdière, in Touraine near Amboise, you take exclusive use of a fourteen-hectare estate that sleeps 21, 2 hrs 20 from Paris. The place is yours alone, from the gate to the shaded avenue through the grounds.
Family reunion, a get-together with friends, a milestone birthday or a weekend of celebration: here is how renting a large-capacity château unfolds, and what this format makes possible for a group.
Rent a château for the whole group
Renting a château for the whole group means taking over the entire place rather than booking a few rooms in shared accommodation. La Huberdière's 10 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, sleep up to 21 people, and everything else comes with them: the grounds, the pool, the four sitting rooms, the big table. No one else in the corridors, no check-in time to keep to.
On Friday evening, I open the gate, hand the keys to the group and step back. The estate is yours until Sunday. That is exactly what a group is after when they set out to rent a château with friends or family: a place that lives at its own pace, not at the pace of an establishment. Breakfast drifts on through the morning, the children run barefoot in the grounds, the night owls carry the evening on without waking anyone.
The difference with an ordinary rental shows most at night. In a holiday cottage, you hear the neighbours; here the grounds are walled and the house belongs to you alone. A group of friends can put the world to rights until two in the morning in one sitting room without disturbing the bedroom next door, and parents know the little ones are sleeping far from the noise, at the other end of the house.
How many people can stay?
La Huberdière answers the search for a holiday cottage for 20 people, with the bonus of a real château. The estate brings together everything a large group is after, indoors and out:
- 10 characterful rooms and suites, sleeps 21, each with its own private bathroom
- Four sitting rooms for a grand dinner for up to 22 guests
- A fully equipped kitchen at your disposal to prepare your meals
- Fourteen hectares of walled grounds and a pool heated from April to October
Space is never in short supply, inside or out. You gather everyone for a big meal, then each drifts off: a book by the pool, a game of cards in a sitting room, a nap in the shade of the century-old trees. The group keeps its unity without anyone getting under each other's feet.
Our rooms carry a name rather than a number, and no two are ever alike. That is deliberate: everyone finds their own, and regulars ask for the same one year after year. Some suit a couple, others a family with children, a few are shared between friends. When you book, we arrange the group by age and by affinity, so no one ends up crossing the whole château in their pyjamas.
On the practical side, bed and bath linen is provided, the sitting rooms are heated in winter, and the kitchen has everything you need to prepare a proper meal for twenty. You arrive with your provisions or your ideas, the rest is already in place. For a birthday or a party, the four sitting rooms open one into the next and leave room for a long table, a buffet and a quieter corner for those who prefer conversation to music.
A weekend with friends or a family reunion
The weekend, from Friday to Sunday, remains the most common format for renting a château with friends or family. Two nights are enough to switch off properly, to reconnect without the fatigue of a long journey or the rush of a single evening. The château lends itself just as well to a cousins' gathering as to a milestone birthday, a low-key stag or hen weekend, or simply a reunion of old friends.
We leave you to live the place your own way. You cook for yourselves or you hand the meals to us; you plan your own activities or you ask us for advice on visits. As the lady of the house, my job is to make the logistics invisible so that you only have to think about your own people. A group that arrives worn out on Friday should be able to set down their bags and breathe from the very first drink.
When it comes to meals, anything is possible between the two extremes. Some groups take charge of the kitchen and do their shopping at the Amboise market on Saturday morning; others ask us to lay on a meal for the first evening, so they can arrive without a thing to worry about. I am Italian, and the cookery class I lead often gathers everyone around the worktop, children included, as much an activity as a dinner. Tell us in advance what you would prefer, and we set the shopping and the equipment accordingly.
What is there to do during your stay?
During your stay, the estate is enough on its own, and Touraine fills out the programme a few minutes' drive away. From the château, you range out without ever driving far.
- A swim in the heated pool, a game of pétanque or table tennis in the grounds
- An Italian cookery class with me, drawn from my roots and the produce of the market
- A wine tasting in Vouvray or Montlouis-sur-Loire, a few minutes away
- A château day: Amboise and the Clos Lucé ten minutes away, Chenonceau twenty
Most groups alternate a day out and a day on site. On Saturday, you set off early for Chenonceau or the Amboise market, come back for lunch under the trees, then move on to the pool and drinks. On Sunday, no one feels like getting back in the car: you stay on the estate, the bikes come out for a ride along the Loire à Vélo, and lunch drifts on before the goodbyes.
To build your visits, our guide to visiting the Loire Valley châteaux traces a first itinerary, with the distances and the order that keeps you ahead of the crowds. And if some of you want to stay on after the group leaves, the stay at the château page details the rooms and their rates.
Booking the château hire
The château can be booked all year round, for a weekend, a long weekend or a full week. Exclusive use is priced per night, according to the season and the number of beds occupied, and it is often when a group divides that figure by the number of guests that they realise what the château offers for the price. The formula works just as well for summer, with the pool and dinners in the grounds, as for winter, with a fire in the hearth and the sitting rooms to yourselves. The full detail of the spaces, the capacity and the package is on the family reunion and château hire page.
Tell us your dates, the number of guests and the spirit of your stay. You receive a tailored proposal within 24 hours, and we prepare the château, the grounds and the heated pool, so all you have to do is push open the gate.
