The property lies under the protective watch of a twelfth-century chateau. It has three floors and stands on a street corner where a road and an alleyway meet. It is a sturdy village house made up of two main sections with large, lime-coated faces. It stands out from its neighbours for its authenticity and oxblood tone that has lasted for centuries.

The facade – the face of the first section – leans slightly and features a carriage door with a finely sculpted surround of dressed stone. The double-column door frame is adorned with two statuettes: an angel and a devil – one on each side. A segmental-arch window frame completes the openings on this ground floor. The windows of the two floors above are also made of dressed stone and are likewise capped with a segmental arch. They are aligned with the ground-floor door and window. On the first floor, these windows are tall and narrow. On the second floor, just beneath the eaves, they are almost square-shaped.

The north face displays a vertical division between the first section with its single-slope roof facing west, towards the road, and the second section, stretching eastwards, with a similar roof that faces north towards the alley – a cul-de-sac perpendicular to the road. Monk-and-nun tiling covers the roof and a génoise eaves cornice of several rows edges it. Several square windows that probably date back to the fifteenth century punctuate the north face. An arched carriage door leads through this side as an upper entrance into the main living space.

The other sections and the garden, on the east side, cannot be seen from the street.

An initial visit by the regional office of cultural affairs confirmed that this enclosure was the noble dwelling of a wealthy merchant or powerful family. An in-depth archaeological study would be needed to clarify its origin.

The house

The house stands at a corner where two streets meet, built against the chateau’s hill. It is arranged around a central court that features an outdoor staircase of two flights of steps with a wrought-iron balustrade. The edifice follows the terrain’s natural slope. Its main floor can be reached from the second courtyard, which runs along the building’s east side at the garden level. Solidly vaulted cellars extend below it and an attic lies above.

The north and west sides face the cul-de-sac and road respectively. The west face has kept the impressive architecture of what seems to have been a noble dwelling. Through this facade, you enter the property’s living space, which covers two levels, mainly the first floor: the garden level.

Two garden-level entrances take you inside the main floor’s rooms from the east courtyard: a segmental-arch doorway with a coat of arms above it forms the main entrance and a large, recently restored cross-window leads into the kitchen.

The ground floor
The inner courtyard can be reached straight from the street, via the west face’s carriage door and under a covered entrance area, or from the house, at the bottom of the outside staircase. It forms an enclosure between the building’s different wings. The ground floor is largely an open-air level, but its northern section contains two separate bedrooms and, between them, a bathroom with a lavatory. The whole floor was recently restored. Terracotta tiles cover the floors, the most remarkable aspects of which have been conserved and combined with more recent parts, while keeping a sense of harmony. The outer doors and a Provençal-style beamed ceiling in the most easterly bedroom have been conserved for their authenticity.

From the house’s north-west corner, two successive doors lead to the cellars. The first one is a technical room that contains an entirely new heating system. The second one is older and vaulted: it is the perfect pantry for storing the Rhône valley’s culinary delights and wines.

The garden level
The garden level becomes the house’s first floor on its road side and its ground floor further back to follow the hill’s slope, where the second courtyard lies with its covered area, above the cellars. You can enter the garden level from the alleyway.

The living space is arranged in an L shape. It includes all the living rooms on a single storey with the eastern courtyard. From this courtyard, the main entrance leads into a hallway. This hallway’s south side connects to a vast room that serves as a bedroom and office, with garden-facing windows through which you can see the chateau from a low angle. To the west, opposite the entrance, a terrace overlooks the central courtyard, which it leads down to via a stone staircase. Lastly, on its north side, the hallway takes you into the kitchen and, westwards, to the other living rooms, which lie in a row. This is where the building’s oldest part is: first, the kitchen with its ceiling of exposed joists from the fifteenth century – when you look closely you can seem some original painted details on them. In line with it, heading westwards, is a living room, a bedroom, a shower room with a lavatory and a bathroom.

The original features have been conserved with great care, bringing out the different rooms’ floors, covered with terracotta tiles with a joint layout specific to each room. The French-style beamed ceilings and traditional country ceilings are high. Windows that face south and east, looking over the court, and west, looking over the road, fill the rooms with natural light. Four fireplaces adorn the rooms of this level. One of them stands beneath a plane, narrow gypsum pier.

The attic
The external staircase, which leads to the dry-stone retaining walls, takes you to the top floor from the eastern courtyard. This top floor is in an L shape, like the living space below it. It offers three vast rooms that have not been converted. Their floors are covered in terracotta tiles. Two square windows face west.