Scruffy but Charming

After 20 years here in the South of France and spending much of the time working on old stone houses, some over 1000 years old, am I beginning to see things with ancient eyes?

Today I was asked to look at a village property and comment on the work needed. The prospective buyers had already got some advice about the work needed and wanted a second opinion.

The house is typical of the region, originally a medieval stone cottage with constant additions and alterations over the last three or four hundred years in a local Mediterranean village.

Part had been made into a pleasant holiday cottage and there was plenty of opportunity to adapt and expand with outbuildings and courtyards. I found the place charming and suggested they offer near the asking price, there not being anything structurally wrong and it was generally in good condition.

I was then shown comments from the previous inspection recommending that the facades were in need of work, main beams needed replacement and ther was a damp problem on two walls.

My comments to this were that the beams were OK for the next century, the damp was essential to stop stone walls collapsing and the water ingress had been fixed anyway – I had not even commented on the facades as they were scruffy and crumbly but would see the next couple of hundred years in without much effort.

I’m not sure that this is what the buyers wanted, but it is the way properties are managed in this part of France – the tendency is to buy a place, gut it and totally renovate it – my attitude is to leave everything alone, live in the place for a year or more and the property will demand from you what has to be done. Scruffy, but charming – or change for the sake of change – or am I missing something?