A late-19th-century house with a garden and outbuildings in a village among vineyards and scrubland, 30 minutes north of BĂ©ziers in southern France -
A late-19th-century house with a garden and outbuildings in a village among vineyards and scrubland, 30 minutes north of BĂ©ziers in southern France.
The house lies in a village in the west of France's HĂ©rault department, in the country's Occitania region. This rural village, which only has around 350 inhabitants, is tucked away in the foothills of the mountains around the River Orb valley. It is part of the surrounding area of influence of BĂ©ziers, a vibrant city only 30 minutes away. The environment has a Mediterranean climate and is part of the spectacular Haut-Languedoc regional nature park, where the area's remarkable natural heritage is protected. You can get to the village from airports and high-speed train stations, notably in BĂ©ziers (30 kilometres away), Montpellier (90 kilometres away), Carcassonne (80 kilometres away) and Toulouse (170 kilometres away). The village is also equidistant from the A9 and A75 motorways that run through BĂ©ziers.
The property's buildings form a U shape around a rectangular courtyard. There is a garage, an agricultural storehouse, a wine storeroom, an annexe and a house with a 185m² floor area. You reach the property over a little stream. A wrought-iron gate leads into the courtyard. The plain edifice stands in the heart of the village. It was built at the end of the 19th century, then redesigned over different periods. It has a ground floor, a first floor and a second floor in the roof space. Behind the house, a two-fold garden covers 290m² and extends alongside the stream. The current owner oversaw a partial renovation of the main house. It has elevations of dressed stone and rubble stone. Its facade faces east. The tiled gable roof is underlined with a double-row génoise cornice, filled in with rendering like that which coats the elevations.
The houseThe house has two garage doors, two dormers and an entrance door. Among the facade's six openings along the first floor, two are doors leading out onto a continuous balcony with a wrought-iron balustrade. This balcony takes up a corner of the building and leads to a south-facing door. Six windows are spaced out across the second floor, bringing light inside. Two of them are broader in shape. Each window is wooden-framed, single-glazed and fitted with wooden shutters that are painted. The entrance door stands in the middle. Like the windows, it is set in a surround of dressed stone.
The ground floor
From the court, a glazed wooden door beneath a fanlight, in the middle of the building, leads into a hallway with a staircase. The floor is adorned with hexagonal terracotta tiles. From here, a right-hand door leads into a fermenting room and a left-hand door leads into a wine storeroom. This level is entirely dedicated to vinification. The staircase leads up to the first floor, where you find all the everyday rooms for living. On an intermediate landing, there is a glazed door serving two purposes: it leads out to the back garden and fills the hallway with an abundance of natural light.
The upstairs
From the landing, you cannot see the stairwell, hidden as it is behind art deco glazing made up of vivid colours. A long corridor connects to the different rooms on this floor. In the middle, it is split into two sections by similar art deco glazing. These two glazed partitions add undeniable decorative value to the house and spare it from wintery draughts. They also used to separate the bedrooms from the reception rooms. On one side of the partition, the floor is covered with black, grey and white cement tiles. On the other side, terrazzo, with similar colours, forms the flooring. Opposite the staircase, a door leads into the lounge. This lounge is plainly adorned with a marble fireplace from the 1930s or 1940s. In the middle of the room, a window looks out at the courtyard and casts natural light ...
