An old, well-developed house that towers over a beautiful village in the Gâtine poitevine - ref 468512
An old, well-developed house that towers over a beautiful village in the Gâtine poitevine.
The Gâtine poitevine is a wooded, undulating area that is nicknamed the Poitou province's water tower because of its many rivers, sources and lakes. It forms the southern end of the Armorican Massif. This small natural region has so much human and physical charm that it is due to become of one of France's official regional nature parks: the second one in the Deux-Sèvres department after the Marais poitevin. The area is virtually free from crime, social problems and unemployment. All shops and services are within ten kilometres from the property. Niort's high-speed rail station, on the Paris-La Rochelle train line, lies only a thirty-minute drive away. The Atlantic port of La Rochelle stands less than ninety kilometres from the house. And Paris is just over four hours away by car.
The main dwelling faces southwards, standing between a round tower and a square one that was reduced in height. A terrace extends in front of it, providing space for meals, conversations, naps and reading on sunny days.
The reception rooms lie either side of the house's seventeenth-century entrance door, which takes you into a spacious hall. To the right is a parquet dining room with a fireplace and to the left is an equally sumptuous living room. A boudoir, or office, separates the living room from a large bedroom that includes a washstand and an Empire-style bath. This bedroom leads out into the garden. The room connects to a bathroom in a seaside-resort style that takes up the round tower's ground floor. A kitchen and scullery lie parallel to the dining room towards the middle of the edifice. The kitchen opens eastward to the outside. The scullery leads to a patio with access to a woodshed, boiler room and former laundry.
Two staircases take you to the first floor, which is made up of three bedrooms, a linen room, a bathroom, an office and two lavatories. In the middle of this storey lies an extensive playroom under exposed beams. The room has many purposes. For example, it can serve as a children's dormitory, a television room or an area for fun afternoon snacks.
Almost all the windows are double-glazed. Most of the ceilings are insulated and large cast-iron radiators emit the heat produced by the oil boiler very effectively. Most of the roofs are new or recent. The cellar is spectacular under its ribbed vault (transverse arch in the middle).
The annexes adjoining the house include a former stable, a garage and a storeroom under an extensive attic.
The sanitation system needs to be only partially changed.
The lush garden, which leads right up to the house, offers a delightful bucolic view over a 2,800m² area of flower beds, trees and grass. On the other side of the small access road lies a half-hectare meadow with a row of walnut trees running across it.
The houseThe house is made up of three sections. On the left is a round tower, the oldest building. Its arrow slits betray its former military purpose. At its ground level, French windows open out into the garden. Its conical roof is covered in Périgord tiles in a fish-scale pattern. The dwelling's central section has three bays over two storeys. It dates back to the eighteenth century. On the ground floor, it has French windows and two large windows with small panes, framed in dressed limestone. On the first floor, the windows are smaller. The right-hand section forms an L shape, creating a slight right-angled protrusion from the facade. The square tower it once included was trimmed in height in 1900. Yet it is still made up of three storeys, two of which have large windows with small panes. It boasts a fine seventeenth-century entrance door upon a flight of two granite steps. The door is framed with pilasters with cabled fluting that rise up to a frieze of glyphs and ...
