It May Be Old, But It's Home
Building on a 1790 Foundation
With all due respect to “Out of Africa” author Isak Dinesen who famously wrote “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills,” we now have a farm in France at the foot of the Pellegrue water tower.
It’s modest. Just two acres - not 6,000 like the coffee farm featured in the 1985 film starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
But on Jan. 12, after decades of on again, off again house hunting, two three-hour meetings with the commune notaire, an interpreter, the farmer who sold us one of the two barns on the property and the owners – a couple who lovingly completed the initial restoration of the centuries old farmhouse - after all this, 1 Ld Pioche in Pellegrue, France became ours.
And all that that means.
We had been talking about making this move for nearly half a century. When it came down to actually signing the papers there were seven of us crammed into a tiny office in the village Mairie (think city hall – a really small city hall) surrounded by old fashioned bankers’ boxes, stuffed with other people’s business, stacked halfway to the ceiling – literally.
Elizabeth, our interpreter, explained what was on the nearly 300 pages of the documents – page by page. No Dropbox files, no e-mails with attachments, not even any faxes!
It turns out it was Napoleon himself, before his trip to Elba, who required that all French land and property transactions be carried out with an independent interpreter present. Back in the day, most peasants could not read or write so it made sense. With our limited French the requirement still seemed a good idea.
Strangely, we wound up buying the first house we looked at when we arrived in the region in October. We both left that initial visit impressed with the house but thinking “we can’t buy the first place we looked at…” But then after looking at probably 40 other places, we asked “Why can’t we buy the first place we looked at?” So we did.
The original house was built in 1790, with a cornerstone to prove it. Built, apparently, by a fellow named Lezzar. Never met him.
Over the decades it has grown to four bedrooms, three bathrooms a good-sized kitchen and two “living” rooms – or what we call the “petite salon” and the “grand salon.”
Stone floors on the Rez-de-chaussee (ground floor) level, two-hundred-year-old plank flooring upstairs and great water pressure – which in France is a real find!
1 Pioche (1 Pickaxe) is a kilometer north of Pellegrue, a small village with the requisite café, bar and tabac, a terrific hardware store, and the Eglise Saint-Andre de Pellegrue.
We have found one terrific restaurant in a nearby village and a couple of very welcoming cafes. And Bordeaux is a 50-minute drive if you’d like a glass of wine.
The house is surrounded by vineyards where workers are up with the sun doing the back breaking work it takes to produce a great Bordeaux.
The view is the selling point. Pretty close to 360 degrees with huge white cows and deer enjoying open pasture grazing. There are acres of established vineyards, and terrific sunrises and sunsets.
To be sure, there is work to be done and improvements to be made. Peggy has thrown herself into the task. Furniture is coming in at a rapid pace. Today’s deliveries featured an 8-foot long antique farmer’s table for the patio, a place where I intend to spend my time once some chairs arrive!
The neighbors have come by, including the farmer who owns the vines to the back and side of us. He is proud of his sauterne – which is pretty well regarded in the community as undrinkable. We are saving the bottle he gave us for that special occasion.
We are often asked why we moved to France, which also has its issues – substantial ones at that. Just yesterday we passed a tractor blockade not far from our house that bottled up the entire region. And recent tractor blockades in Paris have shut the city down.
In addition to farming issues, immigration, health care, retirement (do these topics sound familiar?) are all hot points for France’s lawmakers. And like the U.S., France is moving to the right politically - although not with the burn all bridges mentality of the new Republican Party.
In part we moved here because we had planned on it for so long that it just seemed the right thing to do.
But mostly it has to do with what attracted us to France when we met here nearly 50 years ago as college students.
We want to better understand a country that for the most part shuts down every Sunday at noon for a long family lunch. It shuts down every weekday from noon to 2 p.m. for lunch and, frankly a break from work. Yes, these folks do enjoy a good lunch. And no, they don’t care about lost productivity or how many sales they missed while being closed.
But it’s more than that.
France manages to provide excellent health care for its millions of residents with very modest patient-cost.
France is more than 80 percent Catholic but not only is abortion legal, it is often paid for by the state.
France shuts down every summer for 21 days to watch, wait for it, a bicycle race. The Tour de France, which has been running for 100 years.
France, already the most visited country in the world, will host the Olympic Games in Paris this summer. The opening ceremonies will feature 10,000 athletes floating down the Seine. That will impress.
For these reasons and a dozen more, we decided to put our romantic view of France to the test.
Will we be here a year, two years – or 10? We don’t know. Our kids, grandkids, sisters, friends and Steven, Peggy’s long-term stylist, are all deeply missed. We will be visiting, of course.
But for today, we’re here. And as the French would say: “Demain n’est promis a personne.” (“Tomorrow is promised to no one.”)
See you in Pellegrue!
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Thanks so much Ed. I would to see your art work. Look forward to seeing you this spring.
Félicitations! 🥂