La Socelière is proof that a man’s castle can also be a home.

The 17th-century chateau is so down-to-earth, in fact, that all four generations of the Laviani family go shoeless when they visit in the summer: Giuseppe, 82, and his wife, Giacomina, 77, who bought the place in 1999; their children, Ferruccio, 52, an architect based in Milan who is known for designing the 2003 Bourgie lamp, among other things, and Clara, 56; Clara’s husband, Antonio Fontana, 57, and their two daughters, Marta, 30, and Giulia, 23; and Marta’s 4-year-old daughter, Anita, the first great-grandchild.

The first day you’re there, Ferruccio Laviani said: “Maybe you feel a little down, far from the real world. The mobile phone doesn’t work well. The Internet goes jumping. The TV channels to see are just five instead of the millions. But when you start to get used to it, you begin to learn to lie down on an armchair and open a book.”

He continued: “I fall asleep on the couch while I look out the window at the blue pure sky, and feel light breaths of fresh air coming from the half-closed shutters. I go along the Vendée River with a small rowing boat, or I find my sheep, especially the ram, Lambert, who is like a dog running to make me a party when I arrive.”

It wasn’t their intention to buy a chateau. They wanted a house on the Riviera, but the Côte d’Azur was “too expensive for what you got,” Mr. Laviani remembers his father saying. So friends took them to see a fixer-upper in the Loire Valley.