Our friends Agnieszka and Christoph just bought a small farmhouse in Rambouillet.
(That’s pronounced Rom-bwee-ay).
At least I think it’s a farmhouse as it’s in the style of a « longère » which is what we’d call a railroad apartment. Except it’s a house, not an apartment. And it’s on a farm, not a railroad. And except it’s no longer on a farm because the town developed around it, swallowing up all the land.
But 200 years ago, it was a farm with nothing but forest and tilled fields around. Perhaps its produce graced the tables of the Chateau de Rambouillet nearby.
As if the 200 year old farmhouse were not seductive enough, a sculptor lived there in the early 1900′s and contributed his work to the details of this small house. So between what was original and what was his, we see things like
pretty doorknobs
and pretty molding on the doors
porcelain plastered into the walls
and tiles set just above the doorways.
We see artwork on the wooden beam above the stove
and vaulted ceilings
and brick chimneys,
window alcoves in every room that overlook the terrace
and tiny steps up and down all over the crooked house.
Agnieszka added her own touches of copper
(housecleaning anyone?)
and Villeroy & Boch dishes with old toile de jouey patterns.
We had a reunion amongst friends since she now lives 50 kilometres outside of Paris, with our kids all playing together.
Agnieszka’s two Polish kids, Danila’s two Italian kids, my three American kids (and we were missing the other member of the gang – Elizabeth and her Indonesian kids, but she just had a baby girl and was out of commission). And of course all of us are married to Frenchies, so the kids are really just French after all, and that’s what they speak to each other.
But oh how I love my international life and my international friends.
With a house so delightfully covered in vines and rose bushes
and shuttered windows with quaint lanterns,
and all the charming old decorations,
what do they need with a pony too?
So Agnieszka and her boys graciously gave it to Petit Prince,
where it will make its home
amongst the American cowboys where it belongs.
(Who are really just French after all).
Oh, that old farmhouse looks absolutely divine. So full of character and artistry and such a feeling of lives lived.