A refined early-20th-century house, built of granite and designed to showcase granite, nestled in a calm neighbourhood in the French city of Nantes -
A refined early-20th-century house, built of granite and designed to showcase granite, nestled in a calm neighbourhood in the French city of Nantes.
The city of Nantes is the administrative centre of France's Loire-Atlantique department and the historical capital of the Duchy of Brittany. Today, it is the capital of France's Pays de la Loire region. The city combines economic vibrancy with a high quality of life. Indeed, in Nantes you find a remarkable wealth of built heritage and the city is just a short distance from the Atlantic Ocean. The property is tucked away in the west of the city, in the Zola district - a calm residential area. This spot is well connected to public transport. Nantes train station, from where you can reach Paris in just two hours by high-speed rail, is only around 20 minutes from the home by bicycle or via public transport. And trams and buses smoothly take you into the city's historical heart with its monuments, including Nantes Cathedral and the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, as well as the River Loire quaysides. On foot from the property, you can easily reach shops and amenities.
The house is set back from a calm road. It reveals itself discreetly. Wrought-iron railings upon a low wall with granite coping stones marks the plot's front demarcation, yet without hiding the house's impressive facade. Your gaze is drawn to the facade, while a central gate invites you to step from the public pavement into the private plot. A few granite steps, smoothened by time, lead up to a double door of sculpted wood beneath an arched glazed fanlight. The house was built in around 1920 for a granite quarry manager. So, in its very material, the edifice bears the footprint of its history. Stone, which is omnipresent here, gives structure to both the building and its outdoor spaces. The house has a garden-level floor, a ground floor, a first floor and a second floor in the roof space. It offers a total floor area of 216m². The gently sloping plot gives structure to the rooms and uses. Level with the street, the ground floor houses the reception rooms. Bedrooms lie in the two upper floors. Lower down, the garden-level floor houses a garage and spare rooms, with a door leading straight out into the courtyard. On the street side, the walled garden extends the facade and gives the house privacy. On the side, a lateral lane runs perpendicular to the street. It runs alongside the edifice and leads to the back of the plot. It takes you to a broad sliding gate that leads into a stone-walled garden. This garden is partly paved. You can park two vehicles in it, in addition to the garage, in the shade of two large magnolias. The house's garden-level floor lies level with this back garden. And in the middle of the rear elevation, a monumental flight of granite steps with a granite balustrade leads upwards. This straight flight of steps links the back garden to the south hallway on the ground floor - a remarkable architectural transition from the outside into the reception rooms.
The houseThe street-facing facade, rendered with beige and greyish tones, is punctuated with quoins and window and door surrounds of dressed stone. On the ground floor, three slightly arched openings add to the edifice's plinth course. Two tall windows fitted with louvred shutters frame a central entrance door of solid wood with panels edged with mouldings. On the first floor, three tall windows stand behind a continuous balcony with a finely crafted wrought-iron balustrade - a centrepiece of the magnificent edifice. This wrought-iron guardrail with foliage motifs rests upon a stone base with a cornice of mouldings, supported by corbels sculpted with an acanthus motif. Above the central window, there is a remarkably refined stone cartouche: a lion's head framed between foliage scrollwork, quarrying tools and a chain - an ...
