James Hill Lives in a Castle

James Hill, British accent, speaker of five languages, Oxford educated, tall, handsome, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his war photography, lives in a chateau a couple of hours outside Paris. So, you know, average dude.

Veterans of the blog were first introduced to James about a year before the Sochi Games when John Branch (I only hang out with Pulitzer winners, apparently!) and I met him there for a little pre-Games recon.

At the time, James was the NYT photographer based in our Moscow bureau. You might remember a couple of blog posts from that trip. One where James told me to “just pay the man,” followed by, “welcome to Russia, Joe.” Here’s that post about Alexei, the ex-con.

The other was when our Azerbaijani driver and fixer, Sahib, was trying out his new English phrases on me. The most memorable was “Oh my God, Joe.” Here’s that post

About a year ago, several of us came to Paris for the World Media Summit. It’s a dog and pony show where the host city shows the media around to all the venues and tells everyone that everything will be ready and these will be the best Games ever. Note: Paris may have been right on both counts.

James lives in France now, sometimes in his apartment on the Seine and sometimes in Château Maillebois. He was our guide for all things not being promoted by the Olympic Committee.

We spent a beautiful evening on his balcony overlooking the Seine and then we spent a day at the castle.

I don’t need to tell you it’s amazing, I’ll just show you the photos.

The Castle, built in it’s current form in the 1400’s, is the ancestral home of James’s lovely wife, Sylvie, herself a very successful banker.

The castle, however, is in a bit of disrepair. James said to me the other day that he no longer goes to the top floors because they’re too dangerous. The roof has been leaking for years now but it would cost them millions of Euros to fix. A mixed blessings those chateaus, I guess. I told him I know a guy.

Here is a slideshow of that trip.