Tales from the riverbank
When Peter and Mary Tucker were renovating their dream home in France, there was major work to be done in every room, but most important of all was to maximise the property’s riverside setting – effectively turning the house back to front
The Tuckers effectively turned the house from back to front to make the most of the riverside
Turning a house inside out and upside down will be a familiar story for anyone who has completed a major renovation of a period property. Peter and Mary Tucker, however, took it one step further and turned their house back to front.
The couple arrived in France in 2003, taking a break after selling their restaurant in England to spend time with Mary’s parents who live in south-west France. The Tuckers liked the area and the lifestyle so much they decided to stay, and a year later were the not-so-proud owners of an almost derelict riverside home in a sleepy village, with the River Dordogne snaking lazily by.
Stepping into the house was like stepping back to another era. The small property had been built in around 1750, in local stone and river clay, by an ancestor of the elderly lady who was moving out. Her great-great-grandfather added a barn to one side, which eventually served as the village shop until the late 1990s. The old house had no bathroom so a night-time toilet trip involved crossing from the bedroom at the top corner of the house, right to the furthest point of the shop next door. The roof was in a sorry state and letting in rain, and the whole property was suffocating under a layer of cement that was trapping moisture and rotting the very fabric of the building.
As Mary and Peter took the tour, however, they saw past the problems and fell in love with the house. Discovering a room with a charming roofed balcony overlooking the river sealed the deal.
‘The owner couldn’t understand that we’d even want to go out onto the balcony and enjoy the river view,’ says Mary. ‘She was just using the balcony to dry her washing! She didn’t seem to care about the river and there was no direct access from the house to the garden. The whole emphasis was on the street side of the house where she’d sit out, passing the time of day with her neighbours.’
The Tuckers had their work cut out – not only had they taken on a massive renovation with little previous experience, they were also trying to set up their own events and private catering business – in France, the self-declared home of all things culinary and flavoursome. ‘We certainly had some raised eyebrows when at the end of one of our
meals the banquet host called us through from the château’s kitchen to meet the guests,’ says Mary. ‘People didn’t believe the food we’d served them could have been cooked by English people.’
The couple elicited more Gallic shrugs after calling in builders from a neighbouring town to retile the leaking roof. ‘We had no idea that there was a roofer’s workshop directly opposite our house and he was most put out that we hadn’t asked him to do the work,’ says Mary. ‘Not only that, he was the village’s deputy mayor, so it wasn’t the best start to our time here.’
The couple soon made amends, as virtually every top-floor window and shutter had to be replaced, and new windows and shutters were created for the lower part of the barn, which was open to the elements. Mary and Peter also planned to create an open-plan living space with easy access to the riverside garden. ‘This time our neighbour was first in line,’ says Mary, ‘and he turned out to be a true artisan, working by hand in the traditional way and faithfully copying the style of the one or two remaining original shutters and windows.’
Authenticity was important as, according to French planning laws, because the property is sited within 500m of the Catholic church, permission has to be granted to do anything. ‘But as we weren’t having plastic windows or making any new openings, and we were having wooden shutters, it was all quite straightforward,’ says Mary. ‘We didn’t even need an architect. We explained our ideas to a draughtsman, and he did the drawings and submitted them. We were advised not to take the balcony off the front, but that was the reason we bought the house, so we weren’t going to do that.’ Meanwhile the original builders set to work removing the cement render from the outside walls and replacing it with traditional, breathable chaux crepi (lime render). Mary and Peter chipped the cement off the inside walls themselves. ‘It took for ever and was such a dusty job,’ says Mary. ‘The builders gave us their trade secret recipe for chaux crepi and taught us how to get the lime render to stick to the walls - there’s a special flick involved!’
The next job was to add an internal staircase. ‘After all this time with no staircase at all, we wanted the stairs to make quite a statement,’ says Mary. ‘And because the barn still had a dirt floor, we had to put in a concrete plinth to support the new steps.’ Mary was thrilled to find some double doors in a brocante as a finishing touch.
The renovation took about eight years in all.
‘We did things slowly as and when we could afford them,’ says Mary. ‘Our ideas for the décor have evolved, too. Initially I wanted a traditional French look, but the building itself is very old so I’ve mixed it up with 1950s utilitarian bar stools and chairs.’ The open-plan living kitchen, downstairs in the old barn, was the last room to be completed, and is Mary’s favourite space of all. ‘Whether I’m working or relaxing, I love being able to gaze out of the window and see the River Dordogne flowing by.’