Orange, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Address available on request

A fifteenth-century house and its terraced garden of dry-stone retaining walls at the foot of a chateau in a medieval village in the Rhône valley of Provence. The property lies under the protective watch of a twelfth-century chateau. It has three floors and stands on a street corner where a road and an alleyway meet. It is a sturdy village house made up of two main sections with large, lime-coated faces. It stands out from its neighbours for its authenticity and oxblood tone that has lasted for centuries.

The facade - the face of the first section - leans slightly and features a carriage door with a finely sculpted surround of dressed stone. The double-column door frame is adorned with two statuettes: an angel and a devil - one on each side. A segmental-arch window frame completes the openings on this ground floor. The windows of the two floors above are also made of dressed stone and are likewise capped with a segmental arch. They are aligned with the ground-floor door and window. On the first floor, these windows are tall and narrow. On the second floor, just beneath the eaves, they are almost square-shaped. 

The north face displays a vertical division between the first section with its single-slope roof facing west, towards the road, and the second section, stretching eastwards, with a similar roof that faces north towards the alley - a cul-de-sac perpendicular to the road. Monk-And-Nun tiling covers the roof and a génoise eaves cornice of several rows edges it. Several square windows that probably date back to the fifteenth century punctuate the north face. An arched carriage door leads through this side as an upper entrance into the main living space.

The other sections and the garden, on the east side, cannot be seen from the street. 

An initial visit by the regional office of cultural affairs confirmed that this enclosure was the noble dwelling of a wealthy merchant or powerful family. An in-depth archaeological study would be needed to clarify its origin.