The main house, built out of rubble limestone, overlooks, on its garden side, the Sèvre River from all four of its storeys, while its other façades look out on one of the most beautiful villages in the department with its medieval chateau.
All the living spaces are located on the ground floor, which includes: a large living room, a small sitting room, a library or office and dining room, all decorated with nailed wide-plank hardwood floors, a variety of different fireplaces and ceilings with exposed beams or delicate stucco patterns, while the kitchen, left in its original state, has an antique square terracotta-tile floor. In the other building, a vast room, called “the chapel”, accessible via the small sitting room, could be used for galas, concerts or theatre performances.
The first floor contains four bedrooms, each in a unique style – one of which has a powder room with lavatory – as well as a vast separate shower room with lavatory.
On the second floor, under the insulated roof, a lounge space opens onto the staircase, while a last bedroom, bathed in sunlight, is located near the bathroom with lavatory. The rest of the floor is reserved for the attic space. As for the garden level, it includes a summer kitchen and furnace room (wood-pellet central heating), a workshop, a summer shower room with lavatory and a cellar.
The house’s tile roof is in great condition as is the roofing for the outbuildings, while most of the windows are double-glazed.
The garden is organised into six spaces, including the courtyard enclosed on three of its four sides by two barns and the deep, asymmetrical quadrilateral swimming pool.
The four storeys of the house in need of restoration – which a small courtyard separates from the first – are accessed by a spiral staircase, which is undoubtedly older than the date displayed above the building’s arched front door: 1724. Although some of its window frames have been changed recently and the shutters are new, there are eight rooms in total that need to be refurbished, in addition to three cellars and two attic spaces. An interior garden, in which a palm tree provides a Mediterranean touch, opens onto a patio under which, thanks to the slope of the street that descends towards the bridge over the river, a garage was created.

The Main Dwelling

Facing the Sèvre River, the four-storey house with its gable roof resembles a stone chalet. Jutting forward, another building, which flanks the main dwelling to the left, includes a vast room upstairs called “the chapel” and, on the garden level, a sewing workshop that replaced a summer bedroom. At a right angle to the latter, two perpendicular outbuildings form one of the garden’s more intimate spaces. Located on one of the streets that descends towards the small river, the house’s main entrance is marked by a door, which immediately indicates the house’s status: two Tuscan columns on pedestals support a solid entablature, the frieze of which bears the following inscription: “In the first year of the French Republic, Richard Labbé built this house in order to live free or die”. With a single glance, it becomes clear what the original owner’s political ideology was as well as the age of the house, which in its current form, dates from the last decade of the 18th century.

The ground floor
This level includes all of the living spaces, which have been laid out in such a way as to ensure fluid circulation from one room to the next. To the left upon entering, the dual-aspect large living room, with 18th-century nailed wide-planked hardwood floors, an exposed beam ceiling and wall cupboards with wooden doors, has an original, rustic-looking, limestone fireplace with a massive mantle buttressed by fluted pillars and a chimney hood structured by two pilasters with multiple abaci, which support a heavy cornice. A star, within a moulded arch, decorates the middle of the chimney hood. Across from the large living room, and to the right upon entering, a library (or office) has all the features inherent of an elegant manor: crown moulding and a ceiling rose as well as a fireplace topped with a mirror affixed to a classical panel surrounded by a plaster fruit bas-relief. Indeed, a neoclassical touch permeates throughout the entire house via the moulded doorframes topped with a small cornice, which provides an additional soupçon of refinement.
On the other side of the central staircase, the small sitting room, which faces the garden, also has original hardwood floors and an exposed beam ceiling. From here is the passageway to the “chapel”, a vast room with a double-height ceiling, which is located in the other main building. The two living areas are connected along the façade via a small room bathed in light by a large window, located behind the staircase. The kitchen, quite charming thanks to its original square terracotta-tile floor, its tall fireplace and larder with wooden doors built into the wall, has been left in its original state. It communicates with both the small sitting room and the vestibule perpendicular to the former, in which the staircase is located as well as a glazed door that provides access to the library.
At the back of this second vestibule, a moulded swinging door provides access, in the back, to the dual-aspect dining room with insulated walls and a sophisticated décor: the functional chimney hood forms an aedicula supported by ionic pilasters, while other neoclassical motifs were used in the delicate stuccowork on the ceiling, the central ceiling rose of which is decorated with high-relief palm leaves.
The first floor
This level includes all the bedrooms. Slightly smaller on this floor, the size of the windows was determined by the well-known principle that windows should gradually decrease in size as they ascend in height. To the right of the staircase, the bedroom above the large living room is also bathed in natural light from both sides, like its downstairs counterpart, and has original hardwood floors, a small cupboard with wooden doors located in an alcove as well as an understated fireplace. In addition, a walk-in wardrobe could be created in a separate, modest-sized room. Also with original hardwood floors, the bedroom on the right, facing the garden, is topped with a spectacular ceiling beam, while a third bedroom, above the library and with a fireplace, also has room for a potential walk-in wardrobe. Opposite, is a shower room with lavatory and lastly, at the back of the vestibule, above the dining room with the same type of fireplace, a fourth bedroom has its own powder room with lavatory.
The second floor
Under the insulated roof and visible wooden rafters, this level, with very old hardwood floors and bathed in light thanks to the combination of small windows and skylights, includes a large lounge-library open towards the staircase as well as a bedroom with a functional, contemporary-looking fireplace and a bathroom with lavatory. In addition, there is a storeroom as well as attic space in the back.
The garden-level floor
This level includes another entrance to the dwelling, after passing through the exterior gate and the garden. To the left of the entrance, a rustic summer kitchen houses the wood-pellet furnace. Following on from here is a modest shower room with lavatory and a workshop (glass door facing the garden) located in the building that juts out to the left of the main dwelling’s façade. To the right of the entrance is a cellar in which the rock, on which the dwelling solidly rests, is visible.