SAINT-PONS-DE-MAUCHIENS, Languedoc-Roussillon, Address available on request

A late-16th-century house listed as a historical monument with a garden and secondary dwelling at the top of a quaint village in France's Hérault department. The house was built at the end of the 16th century. It is made of local stone in a prime location in a village where the dwellings are grouped together on a hill - a characteristic of France's Languedoc province. This arrangement of old houses looks like a fortress.

The property stands on a calm, sloping alley within the village walls, at the foot of the ramparts. At first glance, this edifice, with its three main floors, stands out from the series of terraced houses in which it lies. From the terrace garden at the back of the house, you can admire a sweeping view of the plateaux and peaks of the Cévennes foothills and, in the foreground, the village rooftops - a delightful display of ochre hues.

The property's main building offers a liveable floor area of around 179m² with a garden of more than 75m². Its thick walls of warm-toned dressed stone were designed to keep the home refreshingly cool. Seven windows, including two stone-mullioned windows, punctuate the south-facing facade. The northern elevation has six windows with stone mullions and transoms, a little window and a door that leads out to the garden. The western elevation has seven windows, including a glazed door that leads out onto a terrace offering an outdoor area of 25m². On the eastern elevation, two windows fill the dwelling with natural light in the morning. The house's characteristic roofing with gentle slopes has been entirely renovated and insulated. Its old barrel tiles have been preserved to keep the charming antique appearance of the roof.

An aristocratic family lived in the house in the 1500s. One of the dwelling's noble owners became the village's judge in 1580. And several of his descendants held this position all the way up to the French Revolution when the family had to emigrate to the Kingdom of Naples during the Reign of T. The dwelling was sold as national property and shared between different owners. By the mid-20th-century, the edifice was in a state of disrepair. Elderly locals remember it as a site where the village's children would play.

The property's plots were grouped together in administrative terms in the 1960s. A new buyer then acquired the house. Yet he never finished restoring the edifice and left it in a neglected condition.

Later, in 2008, the edifice was again bought. It was then restored to make it entirely liveable, like it would have been before the French Revolution. The challenge that the current owner rose to was to add modern comfort to this old home while preserving its historical architecture and materials to keep its unique charm. The property has been listed as a historical monument since 2015.

The secondary dwelling offers a floor area of around 110m². It has six rooms that could be converted.