Saint-Maixent-l'Ecole, Charente 79400

A large, elegant and comfortable house and its neighbouring building in need of restoration, in a beautiful dry-stone village in the upper Svre valley. The main house, built out of rubble limestone, overlooks, on its garden side, the Svre River from all four of its storeys, while its other faades look out on one of the most beautiful villages in the department with its medieval chateau.All the living spaces are located on the ground floor, which includes: a large living room, a small sitting room, a library or office and dining room, all decorated with nailed wide-plank hardwood floors, a variety of different fireplaces and ceilings with exposed beams or delicate stucco patterns, while the kitchen, left in its original state, has an antique square terracotta-tile floor. In the other building, a vast room, called 'the chapel', accessible via the small sitting room, could be used for galas, concerts or theatre performances.The first floor contains four bedrooms, each in a unique style - one of which has a powder room with lavatory - as well as a vast separate shower room with lavatory.On the second floor, under the insulated roof, a lounge space opens onto the staircase, while a last bedroom, bathed in sunlight, is located near the bathroom with lavatory. The rest of the floor is reserved for the attic space. As for the garden level, it includes a summer kitchen and furnace room (wood-pellet central heating), a workshop, a summer shower room with lavatory and a cellar.The house's tile roof is in great condition as is the roofing for the outbuildings, while most of the windows are double-glazed. The garden is organised into six spaces, including the courtyard enclosed on three of its four sides by two barns and the deep, asymmetrical quadrilateral swimming pool. The four storeys of the house in need of restoration - which a small courtyard separates from the first - are accessed by a spiral staircase, which is undoubtedly older than the date displayed above the building's arched front door: 1724. Although some of its window frames have been changed recently and the shutters are new, there are eight rooms in total that need to be refurbished, in addition to three cellars and two attic spaces. An interior garden, in which a palm tree provides a Mediterranean touch, opens onto a patio under which, thanks to the slope of the street that descends towards the bridge over the river, a garage was created.