“Today, we're telling you how our gîtes in Normandy came to be!
Well... our story begins with a cliché: in 2018, an advertising account manager leaves Paris for Normandy to renovate the family cottage and turn it into a group gîte. As the icing on the cake, he takes a permaculture course. Vincent and Clara met that year in Paris”.”
Setting up a gîte in Normandy: our first years
START OF THE ADVENTURE
Vincent started work on the house, which would last 6 months, and Clara went back and forth every weekend. It was also the year we adopted Pitt, our border-collie dog. Friends and family came to help us. Then came the COVID, the confinement, and it was obvious. No more Paris commuting as artistic director. In 2020, Clara joined Vincent in Normandy and became a freelancer. Here's the story of our adventure.
FROM PARIS TO ABLON: EXPECTATIONS VERSUS REALITY
Aaah creating a gîte in the countryside. At first, you imagine and project yourself into another life, closer to nature. Waking up to birdsong, walking barefoot in the grass and finally breathing. Welcoming our guests, straw hats on their heads, hands still bearing the subtle traces of carrot harvests in the vegetable garden. Contemplating, in a deckchair, the splendid picture of a ray of sunlight piercing the cloudy Normandy sky. RIP Eugène Boudin.
No.
Creating a gîte starts with the sudden transition from an urban life to a rural one. It means spending the day removing flowery wallpaper of uncertain taste meticulously stuck on half-timbering. It's going away for a week and realising that the craftsmen are there too. It's realising that a big garden comes with big responsibilities. It's becoming familiar with Ciaran and Goretti, and power cuts in the middle of winter, flooded houses, fallen trees, a blown greenhouse (oh wow, a greenhouse flies really well).
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CHANGE OF LIFE AND PACE
But creating a gîte also means changing the landscape of your days, living with a certain freedom. It means touching, tinkering, improving and transforming your environment in a tangible way. Doing something different with these hands, so nimble at typing on a computer keyboard, but far more adept at selecting weeds in the vegetable garden, working with plaster, plaster or wood. Arranging a candle on a pedestal table, starting a fire, conscientiously laying the table before your arrival, because for us and for you, hospitality is sacred.
Setting up a gîte means realising that not everyone is nice. But most of them are. It means accepting kind words and “points for improvement” with a smile, despite all the work you've done, because you know you can always do better, and perfectionist hosts are your best allies in this.
Les 3 Fresnes, an authentic family cottage
A HOUSE OF MEMORIES
But let's talk about homes. These unique places shape our history, but they also shape the moments and celebrations that you come here to share.
The 3 Fresnes, is a family home. A thatched cottage with a garden planted with trees, where Vincent grew up and spent entire summers inventing board games with his brothers, building tree houses and gardening with his late father. The project is in his memory.
The question of renting out the house never really arose as a dilemma. The challenge was to preserve a family heritage steeped in memories, while allowing other families to create their own.
So we've chosen to keep a lot of things just as they were, which contributes to that feeling of authenticity, of “cocooning”, without feeling like you're in someone else's house or in a minimalist, sanitised airbnb rental. With us, you really feel at home.
Family photos in the master bedroom, bookcases filled with books and comics, crockery, paintings and antiques all tell the story of the place and its history.
A HOME FOR ENTERTAINING
From the outset,“ says Vincent, ”my parents bought this house to welcome their friends, their children, and also our friends. There have always been lots of people in the garden in summer, sharing meals, especially in the large living room, or around the pool for wedding anniversaries and big family celebrations...".”
Over the years, maintaining a thatched cottage built 330 years ago teaches us even more about it and about ourselves: to remain humble, curious, and to have as our compass the family memory and this joy of welcoming, respecting and preserving Normandy's heritage: to take care of the thatch with the right craftsmen, to maintain the lime between the half-timberings, to protect the wood, to prevent storm damage, to take care of the trees, and above all, to know how to stop and contemplate that ray of sunshine that breaks through the clouds, just like Eugène.
Les 3 Fresnes is now a group gîte in Normandy, designed to welcome families, groups of friends and family events, in an authentic thatched cottage surrounded by a garden planted with trees, and offering a pool area designed for large gatherings.
LES FRESNETTES, PASSING ON RECIPES AND KNOW-HOW
For Vincent, moving to the countryside also meant starting to make his own jams, inspired by his mother's original recipes, combining fruit, spices and herbs. The result is “Les Fresnettes”, a collection of unique jams made the old-fashioned way in a large copper cauldron and on sale at the gîte. You can find out more about the flavours on this page.
Maisons Pommes: renovating a gîte as a team!
THE MEETING
Before talking about Les Maisons Pommes, we need to talk about Xavier.
Xavier is our neighbour. You never see his car outside his house because he leaves very early in the morning and almost goes to bed on the way home. He's the one who really takes a break at the weekend from his sometimes arduous job as a journeyman carpenter on Bouygues construction sites. Vincent met him one summer evening with a wheelbarrow full of vegetables, with a view to forging links with the neighbours (the permaculture training course was very prolific). Xavier refused to sell or even donate, so a discussion ensued between the two men, leading a few months later to a mutual friendship based on DIY, video games and South Park.
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“WE TRY IT”
But let's get back to the Apple Houses. It all began with a phone call in June 2022.
“Hello Vincent, can you put the house keys under the mat? An estate agent is coming to value them this afternoon”.
Originally, Les Maisons Pommes consisted of two houses belonging to a Parisian couple who came for a few weekends a year, and rented them out on Airbnb the rest of the time. Vincent is in charge of welcoming guests, making repairs and replacing equipment.
On this day in June 2022, a light wind blows through the dahlias that bloom around the family cottage. Vincent puts down the phone (to write an article and pretend he's Fabrice Drouelle). His mind is made up.
From “what ifs” to “we could” to “but then...”, the plan to buy the houses landed on the “let's give it a go” box. With the 3 Fresnes gîte up and running for a few years, positive balance sheets and despite the ECB's mood swings, our bank finally agreed to put its faith in the three of us. And, yes, we didn't tell you, Xavier agreed to join forces with us.
Today, we're proud of our partnership. Our complementary skills have contributed to the success of the project, just like the Power rangers, Totally spies or the Ninja turtles before us. Vincent for structuring the project, administrative procedures, banks, articles of association, rental management and contacts with guests. Xavier for the work and expertise, with his technical mastery of a wide range of subjects (and, admittedly, invaluable patience). Clara for planning the work and all the creative aspects: decoration, choice of equipment, manufacture of lighting, visual identity, website and networks.
From moodboards to site meetings, from endless to-do lists to weekends spent at the gîte, from morning to night, our vision began to take shape. From orders for paint, plaster and aerated concrete to flea market sessions... Maisons Pommes was born.
So no. We haven't immortalised everything we've done and created an Instagram account with before/after videos, DIYs and our nervous breakdowns. We just have a few photos and our stories told with a smile on our faces when you ask us questions. And that's just as well :).
We've created these gîtes just as we'd like to be received everywhere with our friends on short- and medium-stay lets. Attention to detail, family-friendly facilities and lists of our favourite addresses - because when you're travelling, you're never better advised than by friendly locals.
Today, when the 3 of us meet up in the garden of Les Maisons Pommes, ideas continue to flow about the next improvements and developments we want to offer you. Semi-buried braziers, a straw hut next to the petanque area, a completely redesigned pool area for greater comfort in summer... to make your stay even more unforgettable.
