The unexpected farmhouse

The past couple of years have mostly been a struggle with renovations, with one problem leading to the next. This has been frustrating, of course, because Cantobria is meant to be about the land, not the house. As you may have noticed from the posts prior to June 2022, my original intent was to construct zero-impact "light houses" in a spectacular wilderness area. That ended up being an insurmountable challenge in France, where the only land that met my "spectacular" criteria prohibited all construction.

This how I ended up purchasing an old farmhouse on a vast plot of spectacular land, bordered by two rivers. I did find the land! According to law, I cannot build anything more--not even the 20m2 of "light house" whose plans I had advanced. So, for the time being at least, I've had to sacrifice my architectural ambitions and deal with the farmhouse.

There is also a saying that the most ecological of constructions are the ones that already exist. In other words, there is no further need to extract materials and consume energy to build something new. Furthermore, the farmhouse is in large part ecologically sound: it's built entirely out of local stone, with some of its walls even carved into the cliff rock. The ground floor remains incredibly cool in the summer.

Making an old farmhouse into a comfortable and pleasing guesthouse has so far absorbed all of my resources. I am happy to announce that the house is at least ready to be booked in the summer of 2025. You can read all about it here under "Your Stay", and why not make your own plans starting now?