A small square in a calm, residential area gives you enough space to step back and admire the dwelling’s remarkable facade. The house is U-shaped. It has three floors, the top one of which is an attic. Its main rectangular section is set back, flanked by two pavilions that stretch out in front of it and stand opposite one another. On its west side, an extension that was built later adjoins the building. It serves as a garage. A covered terrace stands against it, serving as a summer dining area that takes you out into the garden. This garden is fully enclosed by a tall stone wall punctuated with two doors that lead out onto the road. The grounds are dotted with age-old trees and include a well.

The house

A small central court paved with pebbles is edged with a U-shaped facade made up of three floors. Its solid-timber entrance door is studded and has a door-knocker. It stands beneath an upper gallery that you reach via a quarter-turn flight of stone stairs built against the right-hand pavilion. Both the gallery and staircase are sheltered by two eaves supported by wooden posts. The guardrails are made of stone and timber. The facade, on which climbing plants grow, alternates between dressed stone and rendering that leaves rougher stonework exposed. The pavilions’ tiled hip roofs are remarkably tall and slender. The rear face is designed in the style of a mansard-roofed mansion. The lower slope of the mansard roof is punctuated with two dormers that are framed with sculpted volutes beneath elegant double cornices. In this rear wall there are eight original single-glazed wooden windows with small square panes. They include three French windows that lead out into the garden. These windows let much natural light into the vast spaces inside.

The ground floor
The heavy entrance door leads into a corridor that mirrors the gallery’s space above it. Its floor is made up of hexagonal tomette tiles. It connects to a cloakroom, a lavatory under the outdoor staircase, a room with an earthen floor that leads straight into the right-hand pavilion, and a vast reception room. You are taken into the latter via an elegant arched door sculpted with many decorative panels. A living room extends this space on one side. You reach this living room through an open, arched passage in an internal load-bearing wall. This pair of rooms takes up the main section’s entire ground floor and faces the garden. The floor is covered with small square terracotta tiles. Exposed joists run across the ceiling. The walls are lime-coated. A sink sits upon sculpted piers and a monumental stone fireplace with a brick hearth stands ready to heat the room up. The left-hand pavilion contains a corridor and a kitchen, beyond which lies a large garage with two doors. The first of these doors leads out onto the road. The other door takes you onto the covered terrace and out into the garden.

The first floor
A central landing naturally brightened by a fanlight connects to three large light-filled bedrooms with strip parquet floors. You can reach this landing from either a timber staircase or the outdoor gallery, through a door sculpted with diamonds. The bedrooms at the two ends of the main building are adorned with a fireplace beneath a decorated pier. They also each have a bathroom, a lavatory and a wardrobe in their respective adjoining pavilions.

The attic
From the gallery, a door in the right-hand pavilion takes you to a timber staircase that leads up to a first room. This room is handy for storage or for replacing tiles. In the main section of the building, the mansard roof leaves enough height to convert an extra space that covers 100m². Two dormers already fill this space with natural light.