When you buy a house in France, you're not really buying a property so much as a village, an area or a region. The house you can always redecorate, renovate, gut or even demolish to build a new one, but what surrounds it has usually been that way for centuries and probably will be for centuries to come. If you love to go out for coffee or eat lunch at a restaurant, don't get a house in a hamlet where you have to this by car. If you love to walk in nature or go rock climbing, don't settle in a town. If you like to swim and sail and can't afford to be by the Mediterranean, look for a lake.
Roquebrun seen from the bridge.
When I started looking for a house I soon realised I had paid far too much attention to the properties themselves and too little to their surroundings. This all changed when I came to Roquebrun. It was like no other French village I had ever been to, with a rather breathtaking entrance over an arched bridge (my neighbour has had a house here for 17 years and still says "wow" every time he crosses that bridge). As I sat down for my very first lunch here, I thought about the things I like to do when I'm in France and the things I like to do when I'm writing. I like to have coffee or a glass of wine in the street. I like to buy a French newspaper or a magazine. I like to go swimming and take walks. Here, I could do all those things without leaving the village.
But then there was the house itself.
It really was a sad, little house. The shutters had turned grey and a dead wine lay over the facade, like a giant cobweb. Inside, it smelled faintly of mould and old mortar. A Swiss family had used it as their holiday home for over twenty years, now their children were grown and the house had been left empty for over a year. Going through it, it was as if they were still here; towels hanging on bedposts, a Yatzy score card with dices strewn on the dining table, a novel lying at the foot of a bed as if someone was coming to pick it up at any moment. The comings and goings of the Swiss family's summer life was everywhere, yet the people themselves were nowhere to be seen.
When I looked at the house online, I thought it was too small, with only two bedrooms and a terrace with no possibility for a swimming pool. In addition to that, it was, to be frank, quite ugly. It had been remodelled in the 1970s and the again in the 1990s, one decade thrown on top of the other. Underneath all the wood paneling and plasterboard I assumed I would find the remnants of an old house, with timber beams, stone walls and wooden floors, but I couldn't be sure. The house was all covered up. It was like it couldn't breath.
On my second viewing I found this old postcard of the house, probably taken at the turn of the last century. The exterior looks mostly the same today.
The terrace, on the other hand, was magnificent. The real estate agent told me it was quite rare to find a house in the oldest part of the village with so much outdoor space, since the village people who lived here in the old days weren't big on sunbathing. Instead, they had small plots of land by the river where they grew fruit and vegetables. Some of the houses had balconies that had been aded at a later later date, but the village had put a stop to that, nor did they allow the construction of roof terraces. The terrace that came with the sad little house was large and on several levels, with a view of the mountains on one side and the village on the other. It was large and open with just the right amount of shade. Stepping out from all the mold and dust, I realised I had found something rare.
The real estate agent later told me that several people had viewed the property and loved the terrace and the village, but had been put off by the house itself. They simply could not envision it as a functioning, comfortable holiday home. To be fair, nor could I. But I wasn't going to let that stop me.
I went swimming in the river that afternoon, lying on my back in the water, looking up at the village layered onto the hill. At the very top, just behind the church, was Le Nid, the cheapest of all the properties displayed in the real estate agents window. It wasn't perfect, but I could live in it from the very start, making improvements as I went along. What was already perfect was the village. The following days, I went to look at other houses, but all I wanted to do was return to Roquebrun and go for a swim..
Before I drove back to Béziers that first day I walked up to the house one last time. I stod outside looking at it for a while, as if properly introducing myself. The shutters were closed now, which made it look even gloomier and more neglected. It seemed lonely, unwanted by it's current owners, unused for such a long time. I felt that the house needed me, just as I needed the house. "Ill be back," I whispered. And three days later, I was.