Brassac, Midi-Pyrénées 82190

An old, well-restored dwelling with a pool, guesthouse, barn and looseboxes, tucked away among hills in a hamlet in France's Tarn-et-Garonne department. A country lane leads to the property. This lane leaves the main road and takes you to a discreet hamlet made up of a handful of old dwellings. The property's buildings are set back slightly from this hamlet. The grounds cover around 8,000m² and gaze out at farmland and woods that punctuate this corner of France's beautiful Quercy province. The main house forms the heart of the property. It is an old stone dwelling with a plan that is almost perfectly square-shaped. The edifice has a garden-level floor, a raised ground floor and a first floor in the roof space. Its limestone elevations are punctuated with evenly spaced rectangular windows fitted with wooden shutters. An outdoor flight of stone steps leads up to the main entrance door on the raised ground floor - a traditional arrangement in local rural architecture that made it possible to keep the ground floor separate from agricultural uses. A hipped roof of barrel tiles crowns the house. At the foot of the stone steps, a grassy, tree-dotted expanse lies in a commanding position. Here you can admire the surrounding countryside. The outbuildings, also made of stone and tiles, stand around the house. A self-contained guesthouse, smaller in size, offers a floor area of around 60m². It has its own terrace and little private garden. This guesthouse can be used to host friends and family, who can enjoy independence in it. An agricultural outhouse made of stone completes the collection of buildings. In this stone building, there is a barn and several extra spaces, including looseboxes for horses and a technical installations room. Beside the house, there is a well that still has water. And in front of the main house, at the foot of one of its side elevations, a rectangular swimming pool lies beside a lawn where you can gaze out at the countryside. The various buildings are well spaced out over the whole plot, at an appropriate distance from one another. This leaves space for clear vistas of the hills and fields around the hamlet. The small collection of buildings forms a coherent whole that is characteristic of rural properties in this corner of France's Tarn-et-Garonne department, where old dwellings, outbuildings and gardens are laid out beside historical houses set in an unspoilt landscape that has remained mainly agricultural.