The manor stands where lanes cross paths, upon the Gramat plateau, where it enjoys a commanding position with views of the entire Dordogne valley. Indeed, the panoramic vista stretches to the Auvergne hills and the Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux. Over time, the hamlet provided the manor with outbuildings, before its population dwindled. Today, the hamlet still includes a little farm, which is in business and produces walnuts. This farm lies beside the property. With its elegant dovecote tower, the property brings together, in a harmonious L-shaped arrangement, a main section and a series of little dwellings, once inhabited by the estate’s 40 vineyard workers and artisan coopers. So a self-sufficient life of labour was enjoyed on the site. The protective enclosure formed by the layout of buildings bears witness to the estate’s small, hard-working community of yesteryear, at once focused on its own world and open to the world around it. The hamlet was already indicated on the Cassini Map – the first detailed map of France – so we know it existed before 1789. Yet arrow slits low down in the walls and the remains of a spiral staircase suggest that a fortification stood here before, doubtless during the Hundred Years’ War. The same family inhabited the manor from 1600 to 1785, as dates engraved here and there tell us. The edifice took on its current form at the start of the 18th century, when there was a drive to make fortresses more comfortable and brighter. Later, in the early 20th century, it was modernised with electricity and upper-middle-class comfort. During the Second World War, the manor, with its hamlet, formed an important site for the French Resistance, for which it served as a prime look-out. The manor was then neglected unjustly. But it was restored at the end of the 20th century and the current owners later created the warm, welcoming atmosphere that it offers today. All around the property, there is a natural backdrop with delightful luxuriance in the summer – this lush decor is the centrepiece of the site, which enjoys absolute privacy, nestled in France’s beautiful Quercy province.

The manor

You enter the property from the west side via a broad, plain carriage entrance gate, which stands on the bend of a former hamlet lane, into which it blends seamlessly. This way takes you into a garden court, enclosed with walls on the village side. From here, you step into the manor house, which faces east and west. The court is a cosy outdoor space dotted with trees and embellished with well-maintained flowerbeds. Paths of white stone slabs on the lawn snake around the garden. The buildings, standing in their L-shaped arrangement, merge harmoniously into the lush backdrop. On the east side, there is the main house and, on the south side, some of the hamlet’s former dwellings. Beside the buildings, there is a vast patio and a raised, covered terrace with stone steps in front of an entrance door – a feature of traditional architecture of France’s Lot department. The robust, evenly laid stonework with fine pointing bears witness to the defensive nature of part of the manor. Yet not all the elevation surfaces are identical, especially along part of the section that protrudes at a right angle, which is made up of dwellings built differently to one another. The terraced garden has several levels, which make up for the slopes upon which the buildings were constructed.

The ground floor
You step inside the manor on the edifice’s west side on the right, at the ground-floor level on the court side, via a plain arched door, beyond which the spectacular view can already be admired. On the south side, a hallway leads to a more private section, made up of an office and a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom. Eastwards, it takes you to a small lounge where you can look straight out at the panoramic vista. On the north side, it connects to a long series of connecting rooms, including a kitchen that leads out onto a terrace and that has a scullery and stone fireplace, a dining room where discreet stairs take you to the different floors, a lounge with a cathedral ceiling and upper gallery, and, lastly, at the far-north end, a music room or reading room with raspberry-coloured wallpaper. The whole floor is bathed in natural light and has kept beautiful historical features that bear the marks of successive restorations – modern oak-strip varnished floors beside older parquet; ceiling heights lowered in accordance with uses; and partition walls of tempered glass. Yet these restoration projects have preserved the interior’s harmony and respected its historical character.

The upstairs
The dwelling looks deceptively like a high house, but it is actually a low house. It is the slender, elegant dovecote tower in the middle that mainly creates this effect. The first floor is taken up by a single multipurpose room on a mezzanine floor around the cathedral ceiling space that stretches from the ground floor up to the roof. A vast walk-in wardrobe takes up the north end, above the music room. For the time being, there is no bedroom on this first floor.

The south wing
Two annexes take up the manor’s south wing. One of them is flanked with a 22m² bakehouse that stands at an oblique angle to it. These annexes adjoin the manor and form a whole. The differences between them can be seen in the roofs, some of which have flat tiles and others barrel tiles, and in the elevation surfaces, some of which are rendered and others made of exposed stonework. The guests to whom they are rented out enjoy their separate entrances and the spectacular views you can admire from their raised terraces. A glazed lounge, which leads out into the enclosed court, serves as a communal room and a reception. The annexes are divided into two large sections. One has two bedrooms with bathrooms, a lounge and a kitchen. The other has two suites with bedrooms. The whole wing is highly adaptable as the two sections can be combined into one, for example when large families or groups are hosted here. Like the main house, this wing has been masterfully renovated and has kept, here and there, some beautiful old stone features, including a scullery and a fireplace alcove. At the bottom level, there is a 33m² garage, a 42m² storeroom and a cistern.

The garden-level floor
Like many dwellings in France’s Quercy province, the house is built on a slope, with a garden-level floor on the east side, lower down than the west-side’s ground floor. This garden-level floor houses a series of service rooms, including cellars, a boiler room, a utility room and a woodstore. It also has a large multipurpose room that is currently used as a lounge with a summer kitchen and that leads out to the garden and terrace, offering a magnificent vista of the valley below and the landscape further afield. A shower room and a lavatory complete this garden-level floor, which could serve as a self-contained dwelling. Indeed, it is easy to imagine a bedroom being added down here or a gîte being created, depending on your needs.