Ma Maison, My House
If you go back far enough to any source of French romances, there will be a chateau, a cottage, a manoir, or a farmhouse that lives in the middle of it, not unlike a living character itself. In fact, in France until recently, most rural houses had only names instead of addresses. Calling your home like mine by its name, Camont, always made it feel more like a person. You would refer to someone by their farm or house name rather than their surname: Jehanne de Boué, Dominique de Barici, and I was always—Kate de Camont. Camont has been my constant companion since the summer of 1989 when I first saw her, draped in ivy and nettles and surrounded by a bramble moat, standing proudly along the Canal de Garonne.
A wide open fireplace served for heating and cooking; old barrels and huge oak vats were for making wine; duck fat yellow-glazed confit pots and broken furniture still rested on the cool, beaten clay floor carved into the hillside. I unearthed broken crockery and old glass bottles that had been tossed alongside the remains of a wood oven, which provided bread for the three families working the farm. More than a piece of property, this is what I bought—history.
My house is a very, very, very fine house…
In the early part of my memoir Finding France, I wrote about how I found my house: stumbling along the canal on my canal barge, the Julia Hoyt. Then, she was but a ruin, a shell of an 18th-century farmhouse complex complete with barn, pigeonnier, and piggery. There was a chimney but no roof, a window but no shutters. It was love at first sight. Seriously. If you have ever dreamt about owning “an old pile of stones,” I caution you—this could be your undoing. Or your great glory.
In these coming sections of Champêtre, Ma Maison, I’ll intimately introduce the standing stones and Roman bricks, those old bones of buildings that somehow have withstood flood and storm, revolution and famine, to welcome a new generation or century of those seeking shelter. Questions? Fire away, and I’ll try to answer them as I can.
Here is a rough layout drawing of the three buildings and how they are connected. The Barn and the Pigeonnier Tower were built first, then Kitchen #1 was added on, and later still, two sides of the Piggery were closed in to connect those two first buildings. Then we had to make openings through the 2-foot thick walls to be able to move between the buildings; there are now 7 doors to the outside and 4 staircases connecting all the different levels. However, in the private part that I live in—bedroom, bath, and office/library/TV room—are all on the same level as the second kitchen and dining area (let’s call it Kate’s Cottage for future reference, although it is the west wing of the Barn).
Meet Camont.
Built between 1724-1794, this part that I own and live in began as the working buildings for a much larger farm that covered a hundred acres or so between the Garonne River banks and main road that still runs between Agen and a series of villages, Le Passage, Brax, Serignac, Montesquieu, and a narrow 1 kilometer wide band of the valley floor for Ste. Colombe-en-Bruilhois, my home village. By the time I came across this puzzle of ruins on the abandoned farm, all of the agricultural lands, anything still in production—orchards, fields, and farms, had been carved up and dispersed to neighboring farms to remain in production. This left a small 1-hectare (2.4 acres) canalside parcel with a few old buildings unloved and unwanted—until I came along.
For a very small sum (approximately $14K in 1989), I was allowed to carve out enough land from an old apple orchard, buy the farm buildings and old standing house, and access what was then a potable water spring that sprang from the hillside that the country lane passed over.
That was the beginning. I only wanted to access the electricity and city water pipes that served the original farmhouse so that I could moor my 85 ft. canal barge under the shade of the towering poplar trees with all the modern comforts needed. The canal ran at the foot of the property along the state owned towpath and just 50 steps from the pigeonnier. The restoration and renovation of the entire complex would take many years as I began by plotting small annual projects on the pigeonnier, first a roof, then a drainage trench, septic tank, electricity, water, etc… Two bedrooms/ two bathrooms, a sitting room and my kitchen were complete. I eventually bought out early partners (an ex-husband and 2 friends). I became sole owner, eventually moving off the barge and into the house 12 years later. To accommodate my family moving in with me (my mother and sister), I tackled a much larger (read more expansive) project to renovate the barn into a more extensive living and working space, adding three more bedrooms and bathrooms, another large kitchen for teaching, and a workspace/office and studio for me. I’ll tell you more about how I used this space later. You can also peek at the Relais de Camont, the writers’ creative residency that uses about one-half of the space now.
The Pigeonnier No roof and fireplace.
But let’s go back to the beginning… these old stone bones. Many of the buildings in my part of the Garonne Valley Floor were built using river rock rubble and field stones. Cut stones were kept for corners and lintels, and large 10 x 14 x 1.5-inch flat bricks called Roman bricks were laid to level the course of rocks every 1 to 2 feet, like a layer cake.
The two-story walls were plastered over and inscribed with scars like graffiti, open to the sky—hot sun and winter rains—and the floor was littered with wheelbarrows of rubble—tiles, wooden rafters, floors, dirt—over 60 wheelbarrow loads to be exact. At the bottom of all that rubble, which became the backfill for a driveway, was a 300-year-old terracotta tile floor laid on beaten earth. It was like Roman archeology minus the mosaics.
The excitement of discovery powered the initial cleaning and reroofing of the 300-square foot room already dubbed the kitchen because there was a 7-foot wide fireplace—la cheminée. There was another fireplace in the other room, the base of the pigeonnier, and a small stone sink inset into the outside wall. Most certainly, this would have been the real kitchen, but I insisted that the two-story open-to-the-rafters, newly roofed space would become my dream French kitchen.
In the scheme of things, the pigeonnier would have been built first, with a free-standing three-story dovecot tower to house a few hundred birds on the top floor in wicker basket nests hung from hand-made iron nails. The birds were part of the early French farming culture, dating to the Middle Ages, supplying a much-needed boost of high-nitrogen fertilizer as well as meat and eggs. Signature pigeonniers are a historic part of the agricultural architecture here and every large property, chateaus and chartreuse and manoirs owned at least one. It wasn’t until after the French Revolution in the late 1790s that smaller landowners could build a pigeonnier on their own property. However, Camont as a farm was large enough to have had one from its earliest days and so was classified as a grande ferme.
This newly designated kitchen building would have been added on to the pigeonnier tower. You can see the cut stone seam line outside and the rodent-proof tile work that encircled the outside of the tower from the inside of the kitchen. Along with a second floor, probably a dormitory or sleeping room for family or workers, there was one door into the room from the pigeonnier and a 4-foot-tall narrow window which once lengthened become a door to the outside terrace and potager garden.
The rubble was cleared, and the hearth tiles were searched for buried treasure. Louis d’Or coins were often hidden under the hearth for safekeeping!
It would take a few more summers to work through the basics—one year, a roof and shutters to close the house up; the next, a French drain and a septic tank, followed by water and then electricity. Floor beams would be raised, and bedrooms laid out each with a tub or shower and toilet as there was no place to put a separate bathroom in the square tower’s layout. Claude, our friend and builder, found an old staircase to replace the scary ladder to the topmost floor. It looks like it was always there; I’ve painted it a few times, and it needs another coat.
That was what I was aiming for—slow living. I would ask myself, what would Old Man Dupuy have done? The most jury-rigged solutions that I could afford. We’d use what was at hand. Champêtre Architecture: do less, not more; let some things just be. Thirty years later, I still use this model. Leave the old tile floors as they are and just keep them clean; when it rains, and the water flows through the underground gravel levels, it’s damp. So we light a fire in the perfect Jotul wood stove, a new addition 12 years ago. This was never meant to be a modern house.
What’s Next?
Classic French cookbooks - Videos on the staircase
Maiden France Vintage- all the old things we love—pottery, kitchen tools, barware, tableware, furniture, and linens—that make a home so French.
L’Artisans- the French makers who keep the art in l’art de vivre—potters, painters, butchers, cheesemakers, weavers, textile designers, gilders, jewelry designers, chocolatiers, and so many more.
à La Carte RoadTrips: Take a morning drive or an overnight jaunt to discover those hidden places for les petites vacances.
French Dreams- the art and color of painting and photographing France, its intimate rooms and gardens, and its open landscapes. For me, long before France, there were museums.
Just love this description of finding, then building your life in Camont. And what treasure under the 60 wheelbarrows of rubble! Those tile floors are the best! In France they say that we don't choose a house, the stones choose us! Indeed you heard them calling you, and you understood the assignment.
This is gorgeous writing. We love that idea of just leaving some things be. Our barns are going to stay ‘very French farm’. Where there’s no need to change things, leave them. Love this story of yours. The patience of the restoration is astonishing. And the learning you have done, and so generously shared, is incredible.