I guess it was ‘being restored’ which is why it looked crappy enough to bulldoze. Its the kind of plot you’d normally see in a Chevy Chase movie, and you shake your head with ‘As if that would ever happen in real life’.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/05/wdr-france-chateau-bordeaux-destroyed-village.html

18th-century French chateau accidentally bulldozed
Local villagers in shock after manor in Bordeaux region destroyed in renovation mix-up

Residents of a sleepy French village in Bordeaux have been left dumbfounded after discovering their local 18th-century chateau was bulldozed “by mistake.”

The mayor’s office in Yvrac said Wednesday that workers who were hired to renovate the grand 140,000-square-foot manor and raze a small building on the same estate in southwest France mixed them up.
Yvrac

“The Chateau de Bellevue was Yvrac’s pride and joy,” said former owner Juliette Marmie. “The whole village is in shock. How can this construction firm make such a mistake?”

Local media reported that the construction company misunderstood the renovation plans of the current owner, Russian businessman Dmitry Stroskin, to clean up the manor and restore it to its former baroque glory.

Stroskin was away when the calamity occurred and returned home to discover his chateau, a local treasure boasting a grand hall that could host some 200 people, as well as a sweeping stone staircase — was nothing but rubble.

“I’m in shock ... I understand the turmoil of the community,” local media quoted Stroskin as saying.

He told them he plans to build a replica of the lost manor on the site.

I’m betting there is a huge lawsuit in the works there somewhere and a construction company that is about to be bankrupted.