Just Do It!

Through it all, though, we (especially Jack) kept looking at real estate in France, via the internet. And every time we have visited France, our semi-joking catchphrase has been, “C’est à vendre?” (“Is that for sale?”) While Jack found so many amazing places for sale – old water mills, barns that would be perfect as renovated art studios, gardens and swimming pools overlooking hilly vistas, outdoor and indoor stone bread/pizza ovens to bake in…so many incredible choices – these all still seemed to be just dreams.

One day last Fall, we decided to go to a basic French real estate site (not one with glamorous properties for foreigners) and start at the bottom of the price scale. Working my way up from completely rundown places with no possibility of water and electricity, to abodes that seemed to offer a few possibilities, I finally got to some places with real potential (although Jack had his doubts about most of them…)

Then one day, it appeared – newly listed, a house that was absolutely charming, in Montagnac (in the Languedoc, just west of Provence), the area of France we wanted to live…and at a nice price. I just happened to be going to Marseille for several days to meet a needlepoint customer from the States, so we booked a ticket for Jack to come too, and made an appointment with the realtor to look at the house the following week.

Everything that happened in the next two weeks flew by like we were in fast forward, but yet it all seemed to be happening just as it should. I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe in opportunity, and when an opportunity that feels so right presents itself, one has to be able to jump right in and “just do it”. That’s what we did.

A combination of luck, passion and “just-do-it” mentality led us to this house and to our new, dear friends in Montagnac. Having made our appointment to see the house, we had to change course for the week I had planned in Provence (turns out my Texas customer was unable to make it to Marseille, anyway), and so we ended up booking a single night at the Domaine des Augustins, a bed & breakfast in the Montagnac that we found on Booking.com. Our thinking was that we would like to get to the town, explore a bit and find the house on our own before meeting with the realtor the following morning. Little did we know that we would fall in love with the wonderful proprietors of the Domaine – Muriel & Olivier Fury – and that they would so happily help us with all of the events that quickly took place in the week to come.

Magnificent entrance to Le Domaine des Augustins

At breakfast the next morning, Olivier, who has done lots of renovations on several old homes they have owned (including their current home, an 18th c. former Augustinian wine-making monastery and its attached church dating to the 15th c. – more on that gem in another post), generously suggested he would be happy to come with us to see the house, since as Americans, we know very little about stone buildings from the Middle Ages (!)

It was love a first sight. We felt that the house was meant for us, as soon as we walked through the front door.

Looking at our front door from the Rue des Amours (Street of Loves)