Inside the Monticello medieval castle-style home that could be yours for $2.4 million
TaMaryn Waters, Tallahassee Democrat
Updated 5 min read
MONTICELLO — A private gravel road, guarded by giant trees in the middle of what feels like nowhere, leads to a modern, medieval castle-inspired home that's now on the market.
A storm-cloud, whale-shaped garage is an unusual shed of sorts. But, equally unexpected is across the road: an unfinished tower housing studio apartment space and an auditorium modeled after the Knights of the Round Table.
Before it was purchased as a private home in 2012, the property was known as the Nautilus Foundation. It was dreamed, designed and built by the late François Bucher, a Swiss-born eccentric who spoke six languages and was a medieval art and architecture scholar who taught at ivy league schools like Yale and Princeton universities and, later in life, Florida State University.
A portion of the library inside the home located at 193 Nautilus Drive in Monticello, Florida.
He embarked on a journey to build a secluded sanctuary for like-minded artists and intellectuals. Bucher, who's buried on the grounds, was given the land in 1980 by author William S. Burroughs, most famous for writing the cult classic Naked Lunch, according to the Orlando Weekly. The publication said the 55-acre property was meant to be an outpost for the International Academy of Architects.
The property includes four parcels in total and is listed for roughly $2.4 million. It can be sold in parts or as a whole. The main home and its property is listed as $1.79 million and the adjacent building is listed as $890,000.
A rare find in real estate
Permit plans for the round auditorium with adjourned studio apartments on Nautilus Drive in Monticello, Florida.
The property includes two main buildings that were both meticulously designed to replicate medieval architecture.
The "Trivium" is the main house and features four bedrooms, six bathrooms, a guest cottage, a secret room that leads from the kitchen to the movie theater and a massive library built to hold up to 10,000 books, which suited Bucher's affinity for rare and ancient books (It now holds about 6,000 books). The home, topped with a copper pyramid and metal flag with Bucher's logo he designed, also includes a large office, a three-car garage and a workshop.
The "The Quadrivium" has one finished small apartment with modern finishes, including a bubble gum pink refrigerator.
The main features of this building are the 70-foot diameter circular auditorium with a 41-foot high ceiling, a 62-foot tower, and multiple unfinished studio rooms encircling the construction. This building was designed according to the golden ratio which is considered by architects and artists to be aesthetically pleasing. From above it resembles the curving shell of a Nautilus, with a silo roof center.
The exterior of structure at 178 Nautilus Drive in Monticello, Florida.
Ondrea Maldonado, a Realtor at Joe Manausa Real Estate, told the Tallahassee Democrat that the 55-acre property hadn't been shown to potential buyers yet. The home listing hit the market on April 14 and is already generating interest.
"They really are just trying to get a better idea of what they're looking at," Maldonado said. "What's mostly what's drawing their attention is our medieval castle in the woods."
In all of his 33 years in the real estate industry, Joe Manausa said he's never seen a property like this. When asked who would be the target customer, Manausa said, "it's whatever the buyer says it is because right now it's a residential home."
"But it was built to be a classroom for medieval history," he said. "I mean, literally, the visionary that built it saw students spending the night in their apartments or in this round building, surrounding the round table where the classes would be taught."
One of two master bathrooms located inside the home located at 193 Nautilus Drive in Monticello, Florida.
Owner: 'We had to do just about every renovation you could imagine'
Sitting in the floor to ceiling library, which still holds some of Bucher's books, Fiona Hollier talked about living in the home for the last decade.
She and her husband, Guy Hollier, owner and CCO of Creative Kiwi, which specializes in creative strategy, direction and production design for large-scale events, came to the United States 22 years ago from New Zealand.
They lived in Las Vegas, Texas, Arizona and south Florida before finding their way to North Florida, away from the crowds, traffic and noise. In Monticello, with a population of about 2,630 people, they had found peace and an on-site pond Hollier adored.
But the home, which had gone into foreclosure, wasn't in good shape. Hollier said it had been damaged by a flood and black mold. The air conditioning also wasn't working.
"We had to do just about every renovation you could imagine," she said.
Promotional flyer for the sale of the former Nautilus Foundation home designed and built by the late medieval art and architecture scholar François Bucher, who built castle-inspired campus in remote North Florida. The property owners are selling the site for $2.4 million.
The couple reimagined the dark, metal features of the cinderblock home and wrapped it in stucco exterior. The Holliers brought natural sunlight and high-end finishes to make the building feel more like a home for their family. In the "Quadrivium, where the unfinished auditorium resides, Hollier said her husband has used the vast space as a workshop a few times. At times, she and her daughter used it for roller skating.
Hollier, an avid gardener, soon retreated to the botanical estate scented by jasmine. It's a showcase and where she's spent much of her time planting and tending to an impressive variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Despite pouring significant money and time into renovations, Hollier said now is the right to sell the home to next buyer.
"We built about 1,800 square foot apartment for our daughter and our grandbaby. The rest we were renovating and then when our granddaughter and our daughter left, they moved to Virginia," Hollier said, adding her now 6-year-old granddaughter was born in the house ... "We want to be near family."
Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.
