A wrought-iron gate leads into the property. It is flanked with two cylindrical stone pillars that are roughly 2.8 metres high and have octagonal capitals. They come from a former 15th-century chapel dedicated to Saint- Peter that once stood nearby. Vegetation encircles the property, giving it absolute privacy: you cannot see it from the road. A garden extends around a hunting lodge that an aristocrat built at the end of the 18th century not far from a chateau that existed in Liencourt. No remains of this chateau can be seen today. Different families, including lawyers and doctors, have lived in this old hunting lodge over the years since then. All of them have endeavoured to preserve the dwelling’s authenticity, which stands out for its classical architecture. Tall, straight windows neatly punctuate its long facade and slate roofs crown its various sections.

The outhouses stand to the right of the main building, beside a swimming pool that lies in the garden. In front of the house’s south-facing facade there is a central lawn and a path lined with topiary yews. Behind the house, age-old trees tower. They include cedars, oaks, beeches and linden trees. There are also many fruit trees here. The trees dot the lawn up to the swimming pool terrace.

The 18th-century hunting lodge

The house has two floors and a basement. Two sections form the edifice: one built in the 18th century, the other in the 19th century. The building is rectangular. It is capped with hipped and gable roofs covered in thick slate tiles and dotted with hipped dormers. The walls are coated with white rendering. Many tall windows with large panes punctuate the walls symmetrically. They are fitted with louvred shutters that are painted white.

A path lined with neat topiary yews leads to the section from the 19th century. This path takes you straight up to a large entrance door beneath a protruding balcony supported by cylindrical columns. This balcony, adorned with a guardrail of airy wrought-iron scrollwork, stands out as an original feature and gives the dwelling an aristocratic touch. It tastefully breaks with the edifice’s overall symmetry.

The ground floor
The section that was built in the 18th century is rectangular and stretches from east to west. It is made up of a series of rooms that are bathed in natural light and look out at the garden northwards and southwards. A glazed entrance door leads into a hallway with a floor of hexagonal tomette tiles. A dining room adjoins it. Its floor is a checked pattern of large tiles that alternate between white squares and terracotta squares. Straight beyond this dining room lies a lounge that stands out for its exposed ceiling beams and its cement tiles with geometric patterns. There is also a library with a pinewood strip floor. Exposed beams run across its ceiling. This library features a fireplace of white-mottled red marble that stands beneath a golden trumeau mirror. A fireplace insert in the dining room and an enamelled cast-iron stove in the library fit perfectly into the interior and heat up the home. The section includes a fitted kitchen too. This kitchen has a tiled floor. It used to include a bread oven that was open on the south garden side. A bedroom with herringbone parquet flooring completes this row of rooms.

In the section that was built in the 19th century, a glazed double door leads into a large, bright office with a herringbone parquet floor. This room was once used as a doctor’s surgery. A small fireplace made of brick and timber – typical of the building’s era – adorns the room. A chandelier fills the room with light. This space leads to a vast bedroom with harmonious proportions that connects to a bathroom with a wood floor. This section also houses the staircase leading up to the first floor, in a room with a floor of cabochon-patterned tiling. This staircase is made entirely of timber. With its finely sculpted balustrade and burnished handrail, it is one of the house’s most remarkable interior features.

The upstairs
On the first floor, a central landing connects to three bedrooms and a bathroom that have fine 19th-century designs and are filled with natural light like the ground-floor rooms. Wood strip flooring extends across the floors. The bedrooms’ fireplaces are now purely ornamental. They have been well incorporated into the interior design through windows above them or paint that ensures continuity between the mantelpiece and the wall around it. For example, one of these fireplaces, made of brick and flanked with white-painted pilasters, stands beneath a window, and another one is empty, with only its piers and mantelpiece remaining but with a trumeau mirror above it.

In the oldest part, another entrance takes you to a second timber staircase that leads up to an attic space with exposed roof beams. This room needs to be converted. Four hipped dormers fill it with natural light. The space could extend the house’s liveable floor area considerably.

The basement
The basement is entirely vaulted. It is made of brick and stone and includes a utility room, a boiler room and a wine cellar. Stone slabs cover the floor.