Our history

Looking for a few months for a house to renovate in the heart of nature, we fell in love with the Madélisse farm during our first visit, on Saturday May 11, 2019.

Named thus by the Villadéens, Madélisse was the last occupant of the house, she did her laundry in the basin!

Uninhabited for 40 years, the farmhouse built in the 1850s requires complete renovation. Some beams, some “fregaou” walls, pebbles from the Aygues river, which flows 2 km from here, can be preserved and enhanced.

Preserving the soul of the house is essential for us, it gives us a bit of its history, let's respect it!

Renovating is an exhilarating mission, two axes are at the heart of the project:

- create large openings at the 4 cardinal points: bringing light, warmth,  life to the rhythm of the sun, the seasons. We are immersed in nature.

- thinking about volumes: space, circulation, freedom, independence.

Noble materials: wood, iron, stone are priorities in the renovation project, the craftsmen will all work in this direction, what beautiful encounters.

Surrounded by 3.5 hectares of vines, bare land, woods, and a pretty little valley through which flows a stream called "le Rieu", the farm is a raw gem!

We discover a well in the house, springs dotted around the property.

On Monday May 11, 2020, one year to the day after our first visit, we signed the final sale of the house, the first day of deconfinement and after a few administrative adventures….

First step, destroy, our family is complete.

We the parents, the grandparents, our 4 children, our stepchildren, our brothers, are going to equip themselves with masses, wheelbarrows and the house is laid bare, pleasure of destroying to discover what it has in the guts this building, its history, its solidity, its weaknesses….

And leave room for imagination, creativity for reconstruction.

Completely stripped, there remain the 4 walls, a few load-bearing walls and the dance of the craftsmen can begin orchestrated by Ludo, the project manager and the happy owner of such a madness!

What great encounters in Villedieu, the real estate agent, the owner, the architect, the Mayor, the craftsmen, the masons, the carpenters, the navvy, the neighbors, the restaurateurs, the winegrowers, the olive grower, the farmers, the carpenter, the facade builders, the plasterers, the electricians, the plumbers, the painters, the nurseryman, the well digger….  Kindness, benevolence, creativity, love of the profession. 

We believe that in life, chance does not exist, in Villedieu we had confirmation that such encounters are indeed the fruit of providence. So thank you Madam Providence.