A short distance from the local village, a winding lane lined with lime trees leads from the local road up to the property’s gate, which is flanked with two pillars of dressed stone that stand in line with an outhouse. Once you have gone through the gate, you see the house and the outbuilding facing each another. The two buildings demarcate a vast main courtyard, as do old moats that partly edge it too. In the middle of the court is a lawn where a magnificent magnolia towers. A path runs around it to lead you to the house. On both sides there are meadows and areas of dense vegetation. The house and the outbuilding were built on the site of a former fief. There are traces of the place in thirteenth-century inventories under King Philip II of France, then in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, during which the outbuilding and part of the house were built, as well as the outer courtyard further away. Moats, supplied with water from a spring, bear witness to the defensive dimension of this historical site. The property belonged to the famous lords Gruel de la Frette for two centuries.

The house

The house dates back to the sixteenth century. Extensions were added later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on both ends. More recently, a rectangular tower with a three-slope roof, protruding from the edifice where the original staircase stands, has made it easier to move around inside the house. The house faces south-east and north-west. It is made of limestone rubble masonry with a lime rendering that leaves the stonework slightly exposed. The quoins and the surrounds around the doors and windows are made of dressed stone. The building’s hipped roof of local flat tiles is punctuated with two chimney stacks. The back of the house features a turret.

The garden level
You enter the ground floor straight from the court at the same level, via a paved path lined with boxwood shrubs. The entrance leads into a double hallway separated by two oak doors. The first hall takes you to a living room and a lavatory. The second one contains one of the two staircases and connects to a library on one side and to the living room on the other. Another door leads to the back of the house. Old tomette tiles cover the floors. All the ground-floor rooms – a library, a dining room, a kitchen and a living room – are dual-aspect spaces. The latter features a monumental stone fireplace and offers a floor area of around 80m². Natural light enters through its five windows with inside shutters. The ceiling height of 3.90 metres draws your gaze up to oak joists and beams. The floors are covered with tomette tiles enclosed in oak-strip squares. A passage leads to a vaulted dining room with wall rendering that leaves the stonework slightly exposed and with a floor adorned with Burgundy stone tiles. From this room, you enter the tower that contains the dwelling’s original staircase. The kitchen lies in line with the dining room. From the kitchen, French windows on the house’s north-east end lead outside. This kitchen was recently restored with a floor of Burgundy stone tiles, many storage spaces and a work surface of Zimbabwe hard stone that runs along the room’s length. The library, with its stone fireplace, lies at the other end of the house – the south-west end. Three windows with inside shutters fill it with natural light. Adjoining the library is a little room used as a hunting room.

The first floor
Two staircases take you up to the first floor. The original one in the tower is a straight flight of stairs. It is made of dressed stone and has kept its protective portcullis. The second one is a quarter-turn flight of timber stairs in the hallway. From the stone staircase, you reach a landing that connects to a corridor on its right that leads to three bedrooms. One of these bedrooms is a dual-aspect room with its own bathroom. It also leads to a shower room and to a separate lavatory. To the left of the landing there is a linen room with a wardrobe and a passage to another part of the house. From the timber staircase, a second landing connects to a room that is used as a walk-in wardrobe or spare bedroom and to two bedrooms, one of which has a fireplace with pilaster piers and a trumeau mirror above it and which has two windows and its own bathroom with a lavatory. From this landing, you take a few extra stairs to reach a passage that leads to one last bedroom with its own shower room, to a separate lavatory, and to an insulated loft that could be converted. Strip parquet covers the floors.