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L’Heure Vide (The Empty Hour) is a brand new assortment of secluded retreats burrowed into the Cévennes Nationwide Park within the south of France. Even studying the title evokes a way of longing—the promise of relaxation.
The primary property to open its doorways is Mas Les Vignes, an genuine Cévenol farmhouse relationship again to 1757. Tucked away in a UNESCO world heritage website, it’s just a few kilometers from the medieval village of Génolhac. The property is made up of two homes which can be related by an internal courtyard overlooking the backyard, which comprise a sequence of stone-walled terraces main right down to a pure swimming pool. Past that’s nothing however forested valleys, threaded with meandering streams and waterfalls. We take a tour:
Michel Mulder and Sofie Sleumer are the artistic couple behind the idea. (Sharp-eyed readers will acknowledge them as the previous homeowners of D’Une Ile, which first featured on these pages in 2013.) “In 2012 we moved from Amsterdam to France to create D’une Ile, which took us a number of years,” explains Michel. “The end result was a unusual, elegant, hotel-restaurant in the midst of the Normandy countryside. In 2018 we offered it to the Parisian restaurant, Septime, and went for a visit world wide in our Defender for 2 years.”
Over the course of that journey, the couple got here up with the slow-growing thought for L’Heure Vide. “Our method is hotel-like,” explains Michel. “However as an alternative of rooms in a constructing we provide a set of homes in nature. There will likely be a inventory of the best pure wines and delicatessen in each home, a central concierge service, even every day cleansing, if desired.”
Within the 1700s, Mas Les Vignes was the one winery within the space. “It’s historical past, the buildings, and the encircling terrains have largely been preserved,” Michel explains. After they bought the property, the farmhouse was structurally sound, however to not their style, so the interiors have been sensitively remade in a means that “would do extra justice to the constructing.”
Adjoining to the farmhouse was a second constructing: a secure and cellar that has been transformed into extra lodging (the property sleeps eight). This was a lot much less simple. “Sadly, the south-east exterior wall and the south gable wall have been in unhealthy form and needed to be reconstructed,” says Michel. “All of the flooring needed to come out, and we needed to show the cellar into a rest room, so we needed to dig down into the rocks to put a basis. And naturally we needed to take the roof off as nicely.” They have been left with simply three dry-stone partitions standing.
The secure was rebuilt fully utilizing solely native and pure supplies and native artisans who specialise in particular constructing strategies. “The woodwork is from native chestnut bushes, the window frames have been lower by hand utilizing wooden from the neighboring Mont Lozere. Even the slates on the roof have been lower by hand from slate discovered on our personal terrain,” Michel explains.
The pared-back interiors have been sparsely populated with items from their favourite designers (Autoban, Wouter Scheublin, Constantin Grcic, Ilmari Topiavaara, and Matthew Hilton)—”and, after all, gems from brocantes and vide-greniers” says Michel. There are handmade ceramics within the kitchen, “cotton cashmere” sheets within the bedrooms, and Malin + Goetz merchandise within the bogs.
With their first mission full, Sofie and Michel are already centered on the subsequent property, which they hope to open in November this 12 months. “We’re not aiming for giant,” says Michel. “We need to create to be a narrative, a poem, or path. One thing you may come again to. One thing to proceed.”
Mas Les Vignes can solely be rented in full, from Saturday-Saturday; go to L’Heure Vide for availability.
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