French arts hamlet bought for €152k now for sale for €2m

A Parisian couple who bought an entire hamlet in south-west France for just €152,000 before transforming it into a thriving arts community are looking for its next owners.

Hameau de la Brousse in Charente comprises five houses and two stables, with the oldest buildings dating from the 16th Century and others from the 19th Century.

Entire hamlets occasionally appear in French property listings, but relatively few see their new owners’ ambitious projects come to fruition.

This one was snapped up by Michel Gayout and his partner Hélène Le Cheviller in 1993. It sits on 31 hectares of land and was previously run as a farm and quarry – its light-coloured stone is found in many local buildings.

The resulting caves were then used for mushroom growing. “When we first saw the hamlet, it was completely overgrown and looked like a ruin. No one had lived there for years,” said Mr Gayout.

“But when you looked closely you could see that the walls were in good shape, and the roofs had not been leaking for too long.”

Unorthodox property

Mr Gayout, who was working as an illustrator, and Ms Le Cheviller, then a graphic artist, knew the area from visiting a friend, who lived nearby.

The hamlet had been on the market for a while at an asking price of just under FF1million (around €152,000).

The couple were no strangers to unorthodox property, having lived on two converted barges moored side by side in Paris. This gave a combined living area of 400m².

“It was a huge space for central Paris, and we always had friends staying with us. So when we moved to Charente and started work on the buildings in the hamlet, many came down to help us.

“A lot of them were artists of various kinds, and some started staying for weeks at a time. It was then that the idea of transforming Hameau de la Brousse into an arts centre was born.”

Renovations

The couple had no experience of renovating buildings, although Mr Gayout had done a lot of work on the barges himself. “It was a great deal of physical work, but I enjoyed it,” he said.

“We had local professionals in for the skilled jobs – building walls, roofing, plumbing and electricity – but we did all the rest ourselves, from shaping stones by hand to the tiling, painting and decorating, and, of course, designing.”

For the first 10 years, the couple offered residential courses in drawing, painting, pottery, sculpture, drama, clowning and dance in the hamlet.

An association was founded to help organise events and promote artistic endeavours. Other initiatives included a communal vegetable garden.

Later, they started renting out properties in the hamlet, mainly to other artistically minded people.

Local indifference, initially

The couple were surprised by the initial indifference shown by locals to their efforts.

“There were two factors at play,” said Mr Gayout. “First, we were Parisians, and it is sometimes difficult to realise how different Parisians are in their culture and general outlook compared to people in rural areas, so we were looked at with suspicion because of that.

“And then we were artists, working and making our living with the arts, which was a further dividing line.”

Over the years, however, the couple have made many close local friends and Hameau de la Brousse is well known and loved.

They ran an Easter arts festival in the local village of Sers for eight years, and biannual arts weekends are still held at the hamlet every spring and autumn.

Mr Gayout, who is now in his 70s, said the upkeep of the hamlet is getting harder with age and it is now time to sell. They plan to move to a small house and studio in Brittany.

The hamlet is on the market for €2million, including 1,300m² of accommodation set in an “artistic park, poetic and full of life”.

Of three people who have already expressed interest, two envisage keeping it as an arts centre, while the third is looking for a family property allowing siblings to live close together.

“One thing I’ve realised over the 33 years we’ve been here is that artistic life and communities change all the time,” said Mr Gayout.

“Groups may thrive for a while, but then things change and they dissolve, but sooner or later other artistic endeavours arrive to take their place.”