The house stands on the main street. A small courtyard lies between its facade and the road. On the rear side lies a garden. The dwelling is a terraced house tucked among buildings from the same period that were made in the same style. They look out over the valley.

The house

The house is rectangular. It faces north-west and south-east beneath a gable roof of flat tiles with two hipped dormers and a central gabled dormer. Windows with red dressed-stone surrounds punctuate its rendered facade. Its rear face looks out over a garden. Rendering leaves this face’s stonework slightly exposed. At the top of this back wall lies a terrace with a metal guardrail and a breathtaking view over the valley. Large-pane casement windows are paired with wooden shutters.

The ground floor
The ground floor is made up of two rooms intended for retail. It also includes a private apartment on its garden side. The commercial premises stand in a row. You enter them through large French windows on the small street-side courtyard. The second room is smaller. It connects to the basement and to a small inner court. Members of the public can reach this inner court and a lavatory is available to them there.

A long lateral corridor runs across the house from one side to the other. It connects to the boutique and to a private section. The latter is made up of a spacious living room with a kitchenette and a bedroom with an adjoining bathroom. Large windows bring in much natural light and offer views over the fields and hills surrounding Vézelay.

The old features of this fully restored historical house include corbels, huge solid-timber beams and large dressed stones for lintels and door surrounds. Small and large square stone tiles adorn the floors.

The end of the corridor leads to the inner court and garden. A door opposite takes you to the other apartment, which lies upstairs.

The first floor
Once you have gone through this door, a staircase takes you up to a landing with direct access to the living room. A corridor connects to this floor’s rooms. On the right, behind a large sliding partition, is a bright, fully equipped kitchen with many cupboards. A small brick fireplace takes up a corner. There, you can grill mushrooms picked from the nearby Morvan forests.

A few steps lead down to the living room, where windows look out over the garden, like the apartment below does. A built-in fireplace with a trumeau mirror stands opposite a bare wall that evokes the dwelling’s rustic origins. Here too are many well-integrated cupboards. A passage leads to a large bathroom with exposed beams that are painted blue.

Down the corridor and beyond the lavatory, a sliding partition opens into a lounge, which also features a fireplace and large cupboards. Huge solid-timber beams on corbels look down over the whole place. Part of this room has been sectioned off with a second sliding partition and has been turned into a bedroom. This bedroom’s own bathroom with a lavatory completes the space.

The floors, walls and ceilings of this floor mirror the style of those on the level below.

The terrace
On your way up the staircase to the top floor, you come to an intermediate landing that leads out onto a roof terrace. This roof terrace offers a clear view over the surrounding fields and hills and over the rooftops of Vézelay’s age-old houses. A short staircase leads from this terrace up to a balcony, where windows open into the top floor.

The attic
This attic floor has been wonderfully converted into a spacious loft area. Small square tiles cover the floor and exposed roof beams give the space character. This loft area is bright and remarkably roomy. Like the medieval cellar below the house, it is a charming reception area. The staircase leading up to its mezzanine areas hides a lavatory and shower room well. Two sets of French windows take you out onto the terrace.

The garden
A staircase takes you to the inner court from the corridor that runs from one side of the house to the other. This calm court is bathed in sunlight yet it provides shade too. You can reach the cellars from here. A wall separates it from the garden. The garden lies upon a former rampart, above a small shed that stands against the wall below.

The cellar
The first cellar, on the right, has been converted into an independent studio. It has a fitted kitchen and a bathroom with a lavatory. The middle cellar is of a similar size. It is also equipped for a bathroom. The left-hand cellar is bigger. It serves as a utility room and leads to the impressive Romanesque cellar. The latter covers a floor area of around 100m². It has majestic ribbed vaults with protruding arch stones on two thick pillars. This historical underground space can host members of the public. You can reach it from the street via a staircase, entry to which can be locked shut. All the walls have been lime-coated and the floors have been renovated.