Nîmes, Languedoc-Roussillon 30000

15 minutes from Avignon, a stately home with a proud 600-year history, converted into a boutique-hotel, with a garden, swimming pools and a fitness centre. This stately home, which was built in several stages, has been tucked away for 600 years in a Provence village, through which flow two waterways, and is framed to the east, west and south by three very quiet small streets. The previously omnipresent basketwork activity, helped by the presence of neighbouring waterways, is today still represented by a prestigious and internationally renowned workshop, located not far from the property, which, over time, has experienced a stately, agricultural and now commercial destiny. It was owned by the same family from the 14th to 20th century. The approximately 1, 150-m building complex is very harmonious and is made up of a large residence and a neighbouring, smaller one, formerly used for the domestic staff's quarters and as stables. In the late 20th century, the house was virtually in ruins when a financier fell in love with it, before selling it to the current owners, who completed the restoration of the entire property.It is possible to distinguish three different eras through the architecture of the larger residence.The first, contemporary with the establishment of the papacy in Avignon in the 14th century, displays many characteristics of the era, such as mullion windows and medieval mouldings. This part makes up the current entrance to the hotel. Another era can be made out in the neo-classical pyramid topped terminal of the southern faade dating from a wide-ranging restoration in the 17th century. Two storeys were added, above the vaulted medieval rooms on the ground floor with their vast, arched French windows. On the first floor, a balcony-terrace runs along the faades. The penultimate restoration was carried out in the 18th century with the addition of a wing, giving the building its current U-shape, and a large carriage gate.The south-facing smaller residence is linked to the larger one by a discrete gate opening to the west, below the tree canopy, through a garden wall.Lastly, the stables, which are located on the other side of the narrow street, have been fully renovated in the 21st century as a fitness centre.