An American architect was so impassioned by French cultural heritage that he left his entire estate to six historic sites in France upon his death in 2014.

Gordon Schroeder, who was born in Seattle in 1928, left $125,000 to the Abbaye de Vaucelles in Les Rues-des-Vignes in the Nord department, with smaller legacies to four chateaux.

Mr Schroeder, who died without heirs, had visited France on numerous occasions throughout his life, and many of the ...