House for sale in Mesland

Our friends who live in Mesland have decided to put their house on the market. Well, it's two houses, actually. They operate one of them as a vacation rental (a gîte rural).

Mesland, with its church and community vegetable gardens, a five-minute walk

Mesland is a wine village on the north side of the Loire, just across the river from the famous château de Chaumont-sur-Loire. Mesland and its Touraine-Mesland red and white wines are well known in France. The village is located (map) just three miles west of the bigger town of Onzain, which has a supermarket and a range of shops and businesses, and only 10 miles or so from the city of Blois (pop. 75,000). It's about a 20-minute drive up the river from Amboise, and not more than an hour by car from either Tours or Orléans. The area is about two hours southwest of Paris by train or autoroute.

The main house is an old stone maison de vigneron, completely updated

This is the house my friends operate as a gîte rural (Gîtes de France)

My friends are selling for work reasons. He runs a real estate office in a town a good distance from Mesland, and to get to work he drives about an hour each way on little winding roads. He works long hours at least six days a week, with the long commute in addition. He has found a property that is much closer to his office, and that also has two houses on it, one of which his wife plans to operate as a vacation rental. She runs the gîte and also a catering business, while he operates the real estate business.

Main house on the left, rental house on the right

Here's the message my friend sent me announcing the sale: Nous vendons effectivement notre maison. Cela comprend une maison principale (cuisine ouverte sur salle à manger), 3 chambres de plain pied, salle d'eau, salle de bains, mezzanine, grand salon. En plus, une maison exploitée en gîte (Gîtes de France) comprenant cuisine/salle à manger, 2 chambres et salon à l'étage. Nombreuses dépendances (grange, garage, écurie, box) sur 1 ha de terrain (dont 8500 m² de prairie).

Translation: Yes, we are going to sell our house. That includes a main house with a living room/kitchen "great room," three bedrooms, bathroom and WC on the ground floor; a mezzanine; and a large family room upstairs. In addition, there's another house on the property that we operate as a gîte (through the Gîtes de France organization) and that has a large kitchen/dining room on the ground floor with, upstairs, two bedrooms, a sitting room, and bathroom. There are numerous outbuildings (barn, garage, stables) on 2½ acres (1 hectare) of land, much of which is meadowland.

The living/dining room in the main house

Details in the upstairs family room in the main house

I can add that the main house is an old stone house (a maison de vigneron, or winemaker's house) that my friends have spent the last few years updating. Everything is new inside, including the kitchen and bathrooms. You can easily walk into the village, where there is a post office and a café-tabac. There's a nice front yard. The rental house is right next door but is completely private. Friends of our stayed there for a week in 2003. Nearby is a well-known hotel-restaurant called Le Domaine des Hauts-de-Loire.

The large kitchen/dining room in the rental house

The upstairs sitting room in the rental house

Note that I have no financial interest in this property. I post all this just as information and because I think it's interesting to read about and see the houses. I can put any interested parties in touch with the owner. The asking price is €350,000. That's about $425,000 US at current rates. Here's the real estate site.