Dec 27, 2020 / 09:51 PM EST
(CNN) What do you get when you put a former opera singer, two ex-boyfriends, her French mother, an adopted Scottish brother, a Dutch tango instructor, a Norwegian flower designer and a cheery Argentine house manager together into a sprawling 40-room French chateau?
Well, you get “The Chateau Diaries,” the unlikely YouTube quarantine hit that has made a star of Stephanie Jarvis and her friends and family.
Buying the chateau
Fifteen years ago, Jarvis was living in London, despairing over the cost of housing and complaining about it to her best friend (and ex-boyfriend), Nic, when she realized how relatively inexpensive it was to buy a rambling chateau in France.
Jarvis recruits an ever-changing group of volunteers who have skills in cooking, cleaning, gardening and landscape design.
Volunteers are helping Jarvis to restore the chateau; pre-pandemic, they helped her attend to the guests. Free room and board is offered in exchange for their work. And sometimes they just stay on indefinitely.
Norwegian volunteer Marie Wiik initially came to the chateau to help cook and design the occasional flower arrangement. Now she s set up a large floral studio at the chateau and has gained her own impressive online following, showcasing her flower design.
Dutch tango instructor Selmar Duin showed up at Lalande just as the first lockdown hit France. He drove up to the chateau in his camper van, accompanied by his dog, Diesel. Initially shocked by his appearance (he d been on the road and unaware Jarvis was locking down and no longer taking in her scheduled volunteers), his carpentry skills and ability to MacGyver solutions to the chateau s problems prov