 |
| A house in the Hérault Valley village of Amiane |
The last link in the motorway from Paris to Montpellier won’t be completed until next year but already the road is opening up the “arrière-pays” north of Montpellier and Béziers to a generation that has discovered that the joys of village life can be combined with the buzz of a city and global connections.
Across Languedoc-Roussillon, in central southern France, are scattered almost 1,000 circulades, medieval villages that grew up in a circular form amid the scrubland known as garrigue, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, beneath year-round sunshine. Cool air wafts through their quiet, shady alleyways and, behind the massive doors of the street-level cellars, there is the sense of another life being lived at first-floor level, where flower-draped balconies overhang.
In such a village, says Catriona McLean, privacy and camaraderie can co-exist. “We have four or five sets of French neighbours of all ages whom we socialise with. There’s real friendship.”
McLean and her husband recently settled in a house in Aniane, a village sprawled around a former monastery, from an apartment in Montpellier, after leaving Scotland four years ago.
Alex Charles and Greg Taylor, both former advertising executives, bought 500 sq metres of space in a house in the centre of Roujan, further down the valley, last year, having lived in both a small village and an isolated house in the same region.
They, too, have concluded that a large village in an economically dynamic region provides the ideal lifestyle. “We have made friends from different walks of life and many nationalities – a range that perhaps we wouldn’t have met in the UK,” says Charles. “Being in a village with facilities and people at hand is important. We work from home: you have to be able to escape the office and the screens from time to time.” And a little noise can be a positive. “I quite like the sounds of life from the street,” he adds.
Despite a 12-month lull in the market, Christophe Joullié, director of Saint Benoit Immobilier, an estate agency in Aniane, says interest from Montpellier commuters, French retirees and even foreigners is quickening again. “I had two English people here only today to sign a purchase agreement,” he says.
The Hérault Valley, it seems, is emerging as a kind of city-in-the-country, home to entrepreneurial networkers and commuters, drawn by cheap property, outstanding communications, sunshine and a 21st-century Mediterranean lifestyle.
The dense network of small villages was relatively poor until recently but the remarkable properties for renovation that it offers are key to its appeal. A village house in a poor state of repair can still be bought for as little as €50,000. Until recently many local residents and French incomers preferred to build new villas surrounded by gardens on the edges of the villages.
The unusual houses reflect a peculiar pattern of farming that once existed in the area. Farmers lived in the village, going out every day to work a patch of land, usually olive groves or vines, where they would have a little stone hut, or mazet, to store tools and take their siesta. The ground floor of a village house is, therefore, often a cellar that is accessible through big double doors, with a vaulted stone ceiling and a tank for storing olive oil. Replace the doors with glass and the cellar provides an extraordinary living space.
In McLean’s house in Aniane, steep stairs lead to the first-floor living quarters, which feature high ceilings, exposed beams, stonework and traditional tiled floors. The bedrooms are on the second floor and a small terrace has been created by removing the roof over a spare bedroom.
Since Aniane is now within 30 minutes of Montpellier by car, prices are higher. The couple paid €165,000 for a home built in about 1790, with 120 sq metres of floor space, and are spending €20,000-€30,000 on restoration. The nearby village of St-Jean-de-Fos, a classic circulade, once had 70 potteries, McLean says. “You can still find artisans who make traditional tiles and even ceramic gutters and drainpipes.”
Aniane is “a bit grubby”, McLean says, yet it has some handsome civic buildings among its winding alleyways, including the hôtel de ville (a former 18th-century grain market) and an exquisite Baroque church, plus stores, cafés and a restaurant.
For McLean, who trained in fashion but now advises garden centres on sourcing and product development, good transport links to the UK are important. Airports at Montpellier, Nîmes and Béziers all offer low-cost flights to London, while high-speed trains from Montpellier can get her to London within seven hours and provide a good working environment en route.
Living in the Hérault Valley also allows her to pursue her passion for gardening. She and her husband bought a 3,000-sq-metre plot of land outside their village, near Gignac, where they are creating “an English Mediterranean garden in the garrigue”.
Charles and Taylor, too, are busy with renovations in addition to their website design business. They paid €450,000 for their property – “a bargain” says Charles, even if prices have eased during 2009.
Their home is part of a huge private mansion, built at the end of the Napoleonic wars in the form of a U, with a first-floor balustrade overlooking an unseen private garden and views to the hills beyond. They are now converting the upper floor into studio flats and plan to refurbish their own living area and build a pool.
 |
| Outdoor eating in Gignac |
And when friends live within walking distance, networking can assume new forms. “Here, people might knock on your door and ask for help – if they have a load of gravel being delivered, for example,” he says. “There can be informal trading of time and experience.”
But culture and fancy shops are only a five-minute drive away at Pézenas, the former regional capital popular with tourists for its architectural gems and lively summer nightlife.
Immigration is welcomed by village mayors, who get the resources to invest heavily in better community facilities on the outskirts of the medieval centres. By one count, only half of the Languedoc-Roussillon population is native to the region.
However, expatriates are not alone in grasping the affordability and flexibility of the Hérault lifestyle. Joullié says many customers are young couples from Montpellier who can’t afford city property prices and want more space to raise children.
Improved roads, especially the A75, “have opened up all the arrière-pays behind Montpellier and the Hérault Valley,” he says. “People started moving in gradually over the past few years”. That has driven up prices. “Since 2000 property prices were rising steadily at 7-10 per cent a year, right up to the fourth quarter of 2008,” he says. Since then, they have fallen 5-10 per cent, he estimates, and the market has been quiet. “But I think interest is picking up again.”
The density of villages in this part of France, the mix of wild landscape, vineyards and olive groves, and their proximity to cities, the coast and mountains, is special. From Gignac, Aniane or St-Jean-de-Fos it takes only minutes by car to the Pont du Diable and swimming and canoeing in the deep pools where the River Hérault is confined in a narrow gorge.
Yet the Mediterranean coast, with fishing ports such as Sète and Marseillan, and a string of beaches, is also easily accessible. “The area is so pretty,” says Charles. “We are only 30 minutes’ drive to the sea. We also have easy access to the lakes of the Haut Languedoc. And from the house we have a view to the mountains. I still pinch myself at our luck in living in such a place.”
The writer is an FT contributor based in Aveyron, France
..........
Estate agencies
SaintBenoit Immobilier, tel: +33 0467 57 37 37, www.stbenoitimmo.com
Imagimmo Gignac, tel: +33 0467 57 31 49, www.imagimmo-gignac.com
Agence Adam Immobilier Gignac, tel: +33 0467 57 31 08, www.adamimmo.com
