Location
Set in the west of the historic province of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and the eastern part of the Nièvre département, the property stands within a deciduous woodland that ensures complete privacy. Lormes is 10 minutes away and Avallon 40 minutes, both offering the full range of everyday amenities. The A6 motorway, with its interchange at Avallon, puts Paris within 3 hours' drive.
For leisure, the Lac de Chaumeçon, 5 minutes by road, and the Lac des Settons, 25 minutes away, lend themselves to a variety of pursuits: walking, swimming and canoeing. The surrounding area is also well served by numerous hiking trails across the Morvan Regional Natural Park.
Description
The rural maison de maître rises over three levels. Its principal facade is articulated by a series of regularly spaced bays and finished in a broadly consistent render, with some patching. Only the lintels and quoins are in exposed dressed stone. The slate roof is gabled with a stepped section, and the upper level is punctuated by a row of hipped dormers. Several chimney stacks crown the building. On the eastern side, an attached wing houses the main staircase.
The ground floor comprises a kitchen, dining room and three reception rooms. Each upper level holds five bedrooms and two bathrooms or shower rooms, with the top level offering three further rooms awaiting conversion. Despite well-preserved ornamental features — chimneys and ceiling mouldings — and good-quality parquet and terracotta tile floors, the house will require refreshment throughout.
The maison de maitre
The ground floor
Two discreet doors on the south façade give access to the interior. The left leads to the dining room, floored in terracotta tiles, where a monumental period stone fireplace takes pride of place — its opening now closed by a brick infill. The right opens onto a smaller room with a stove, arranged as a boudoir.
Beyond the dining room, the kitchen extends to the left, with exposed joists and terracotta tile floors. Further on, a back kitchen, utility room and boiler room share the remaining space.
Two large adjoining reception rooms, floored in a chequerboard tile pattern, occupy the rest of the ground floor. One houses a 19th-century fireplace with a moulded mantel, its trumeau replaced by a window. In the other, the fireplace has a black marble mantel and a white faience fireback — as in the first room.
A hallway gives onto a timber open-well turning staircase with wrought-iron balusters and a timber handrail, leading to the upper levels.
The first floor
The staircase opens onto a long parqueted corridor serving five bedrooms. The first, on the left, has a 19th-century fireplace with a black marble mantel and a wash basin.
On the other side of the corridor, two rooms face each other across a hallway. The right-hand room has herringbone parquet floors and a 19th-century fireplace whose trumeau — like that of its counterpart on the ground floor — has been replaced by a small-paned stained-glass window. The room opposite, larger, has hexagonal terracotta tile floors and a wash basin.
The remainder of the level comprises a bathroom, a smaller adjoining bedroom, and a larger parqueted bedroom at the corridor's end with its own bathroom, floored in terracotta tiles like the first. A door on the right side of the corridor leads to a lavatory with wash basin.
The second floor
Like the level below, the top floor is served by the main staircase and traversed by a long parqueted corridor, off which open five bedrooms and three further rooms awaiting conversion. The largest bedroom has a balcony overlooking the surrounding woodland.
A shower room and a bathroom with lavatory are shared across the level.
Floors are in straight-laid strip parquet or period terracotta tiles, and some ceilings are partially sloped.
The service quarters
A rendered stone barn with a recently replaced plain-tile gabled roof adjoins the main house to the west.
The remaining service quarters, with stone walls — some rendered — and roofs in interlocking tiles or slate, are arranged around a large grassed courtyard. The principal building, in rubble stone and dressed stone, houses a barn on its left side and a small cottage on the right, comprising a living room with kitchen — retaining a period bread oven — a bedroom and a utility room. Above lies an attic; below, a large cellar accessible by an exterior staircase at the rear. The adjoining building, a barn, serves as a garage. A poultry house and a former kennel complete the outbuildings.
The grounds
Enclosed for the most part by rubble stone walls, the grounds comprise coppice, orchards, a kitchen garden, lawns and scattered planting — lavender among it beneath the house windows. The land is well grassed and planted with a variety of deciduous trees.
A tennis court to the south-east, screened from view by the surrounding trees, awaits restoration.
Our opinion
Isolée au cœur d'un paysage sylvestre préservé de tous dommages et très paisible, la propriété constitue une verte proposition pour qui voudra s'en saisir en réalisant les quelques travaux nécessaires à sa remise en état d'origine ou sa transformation. La variété du terrain saura satisfaire les velléités bucoliques d'occupants en mal d'un havre de paix proche de Paris, susceptible de se faire demeure de vacances, si le projet n'est pas celui d'une résidence permanente, tout aussi viable et prometteuse par sa surface, son agencement et ses ornements originels. La présence des communs pourvoit les maîtres des lieux de surfaces supplémentaires conséquentes, idoines pour l'habitation et/ou d'autres usages, participant d'un ensemble sobre et coloré qui ne demande qu'à revivre.
Reference 384071
| Land registry surface area | 2 ha 32 a 16 ca |
| Main building floor area | 400 m² |
| Number of bedrooms | 9 |
NB: The above information is not only the result of our visit to the property; it is also based on information provided by the current owner. It is by no means comprehensive or strictly accurate especially where surface areas and construction dates are concerned. We cannot, therefore, be held liable for any misrepresentation.