Property in France: A ruinous affair
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on January 17, 2008
If there were a visitor’s book spanning the 850 years of Mas de la Chapelle St Sixte’s history, it would make fascinating and star-studded reading.
The house, handbuilt, stone by stone, in 1150 by monks in the Proven?al village of Eygalières was where Pope Clement VI stayed during the wine harvest in the 14th century.
More recent holidaymakers who have rented the house for ï¿¡1,000 a day are the Vanity Fair editor and style arbiter Graydon Carter; neighbours include the writer Ian McEwan and the French actor Jean Reno.
A famous Hollywood couple and their nine assistants viewed the house this summer, thwarted not by the cost, but by the refusal for planning consent to build a motorbike circuit in the rolling five-acre garden.
The current owners - the Butlers - Jennifer, an American writer, and her husband James, a retired TV producer and art collector (his grandfather was founder of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art) viewed 100 houses in the Alpilles region before buying the ruin in 1990 for a handsome six figure sum.
“We had no idea what we were looking for. Then we saw this house and it grabbed us,” says Jennifer. “It’s older than the Louvre. You can imagine how exciting that was for me as an American for whom anything that’s 200 years old seems ancient.”
Empty since 1954, the house was in a bad state of disrepair. What is now the large, luxurious living room was then a roofless space in which to grow silk worms.
“We spent six years and two fortunes restoring it very slowly,” describes Jennifer, who now lives in Paris. “It was such a sacred site that you couldn’t do anything without permission.”
But with no financial constraints, Jennifer admits, they were spared the familiar renovation nightmares. “The process was a joy and the chance of a lifetime to spend our money wisely,” she says. “James took care of the admin. I did the interiors.”
The house stands as an architectural testament to centuries of local history, seamlessly expanding over the years, each room more breathtaking than the last. The vaulted stone ceilings range from the Roman period to the 18th century.
A 17th-century stone staircase spirals upstairs from the petit salon to a library and four bedrooms with views across the Alpilles. In the garden stands one of the oldest pigeon houses in Provence. The pool house was built from 18th century stone, using old techniques of weights and string to hang the stones. “And there would be permission to construct an outbuilding,” says Jennifer.
“Everyone who has worked on the house has returned to see it and has loved it. We have learnt from all of them, with each mason teaching us about putting the building together like old-fashioned Lego. They have become our friends,” she says.
“It has been an academic journey - and the opposite of the Peter Mayle story.” Even the potential hell of living in the house - “It was like an anthill, with 15 builders there every day” - was averted as Jennifer disappeared to university in Aix-en-Provence, an hour away, to perfect her French.
After 17 years in Mas de la Chapelle, the Butlers are selling, reluctantly for 14 million euros (ï¿¡9.65 million). “Between us we have nine children and it would be impossible to reach a consensus on how to leave it to them,” says Jennifer. She envisages the house being bought by an art collector.
While James will be taking his original Pissarros and Toulouse-Lautrecs when they leave, some valuable items of furniture are up sale. “There are probably only a few people in the world who would buy this house,” she says, “and it would be someone who appreciates that gems like this are soaring in value.”
Tags: becom, fathe, money, reno, six yearsRelated posts
Leave a Reply