La Placette Haute looked its best in early spring – shades
of tender green on freshly mowed lawns, on hedges and trees; all sorts of
flowers budding, including those plants on which we’d given up hope last year.
Beautiful, like a maid waiting for love. And someone did arrive from afar and
fell in love.
A couple from Hong Kong offered to buy it. The idea of
moving on was not a swift one. Thirty-two acres of former untamed forest and
prairie was too much for the two of us. Once we agreed to sell we started to
panic. Where to move?
The Dordogne may be exceedingly rural – even harsh – a
region at odds with the epitome of French bourgeois country settings that Dan
and I have often pictured. Yet after two years it is now home and there was no
question of leaving, as we believe like Henry Miller that this great peaceful region of France will always
be a sacred spot for man and that when the cities have killed off the poets
this will be the refuge and the cradle of the poets to come.
What kind of place then? Another Périgordine? A small
manoir? A village house with a pretty garden? Despite the low ebb of the immobilier, we soon realized that there
were very few desirable properties available, each house coming with this or
that unredeemable flaw.
For example, a maison
de maître – rare thing in Périgord, region of absentee landlords and
peasants – revealed some second-rate 1970s interiors and extravagant bathrooms behind
a sober 18th century stone façade; another property of character
desolately stood in dilapidation, well beyond our budget, at the bottom of a humid
vale and at the end of a country lane. (Its former proprietor had unwisely sold
plots of land around it, and now suburban sprawl was at the door.)
We mused over a village house at the foot of a grand
château, but again its 17th century balance was compromised by a
1930s restyling that produced an ill-fitting art deco interior. Then came a
country property with decent views but indecently abutting a neighboring corps de ferme belonging to somebody
else. A seasonal residence, it seemed to have retained its true 19th
century spirit, to be ‘dans son jus’
as the realtor said - which did not quite prepare us for the surprise of
finding a marble bathroom, complete with steps leading into a glitzy circular
tub, in one of the former upstairs bedrooms. We left wondering how long it
would take before the bathtub, filled with gallons of water and its partying occupants
(four people could easily fit), tumbled to the floor below - perhaps the only
way of getting rid of it.
Then the unexpected. While I was teaching in Italy
last spring, Dan tentatively sent a link along with a question mark. ‘What do
you think of this?’ he asked, adding ‘It’s very different than anything else
we’ve seen.’
(To
be continued.)
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