Our French gîte: chandeliers, fireplaces and vegan-friendly products

One afternoon in 2011, Debra Wakefield was flipping through a copy of NZ Life & Leisure, the magazine given to first-class passengers on Qantas flights, where her brother worked. 

One story caught her eye. It featured Anna Bibby, a New Zealand art dealer who had bought an old stone townhouse in the French village of Martel (Lot) following “one of those birthdays that end with a zero”. 

The article explained how the milestone had served as a reminder that life is short – and compelled her to shake things up.

“I thought that if she could do it, a single woman in her 50s, why can’t I?” says the Australian executive assistant, who was then 47 years old and living in Sydney.

Five years later, the very house she had seen in the article appeared on the market for €315,000, well above her budget of €200,000. She saved the listing anyway, unable to let it go. 

The property vanishes and reappears

Then it vanished. “I assumed someone had bought it,” she says. 

Debra visited France the following May for two weeks of house-hunting in the same area as the property she had seen advertised, but could not find the exact one. 

On the night before her final viewing, forlorn in her hotel room, Ms Wakefield looked one last time on the estate agent website and refreshed the page. There it was: the house, relisted that very day.

The owner was flying back to New Zealand the following morning and could only spare a short window for a visit. Debra rushed over.

“As soon as I walked in, I knew I would buy it,” she says.

On October 13, 2017, she signed her contract and was handed the keys of her dream house – for €257,000.

She now spends part of her year in France, and the rest in Sydney. Debra named the property La Maison de Wakefield because so few houses in Martel had numbers. 

All in the detail

As a result, locals had a custom to give them the last surname of their owners. La Maison de Wakefield is an 18th-Century stone house comprising four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It was entirely redecorated by Debra. 

There are chandeliers, fireplaces, wide wooden floorboards, a winding staircase, French linens, antique furniture and plenty of vintage treasures sourced by Debra at local brocantes. “Buying second-hand stuff ensures the house evolves and has more soul,” she says. 

Debra is an advocate of eco-tourism and sustainability principles. A vegan herself, many of her products are organic, vegan and eco-friendly. 

Expect to find organic cotton bedding and towels, vegan toiletries and a welcome hamper filled with regional produce, including a bottle of local organic wine. 

The kitchen is fully equipped with pantry staples. The house also provides vegan cleaning products, satellite TV and Wi-fi. There are books, records, games and jigsaws, plus air-conditioning on the top floor. 

A washer/dryer, dishwasher, hairdryers and straighteners complete the essentials.Her dream of owning and running a second home as a gîte came at some cost. “My Australian friends always ask: ‘How can you afford this as an executive assistant?’” she says. 

It is because Debra saved money the hard way. She stopped going to the hairdresser for 12 years, resorting to cutting and dyeing her hair herself. She also started making her own clothes, drove a 20-year-old car, cancelled her cable TV subscription and has not ordered takeaway food for seven years.

Contrasting cultures

The rewards, she insists, are plentiful: French architecture, culture and the lifestyle, especially the two-hour lunch break. 

It contrasts sharply with her life in Australia where her building, although one of the oldest in the city, is still only 200 years old, and where she barely knows her neighbours after 12 years.

More challenging is getting to grips with the language – complicated by the local dialect and speed at which people talk. “It is embarrassing because people think that because I have a house, I should speak French,” she says. “I am really trying.”

Although her age – she’s now 61 – might be a handy excuse for being a little slow to pick up French, she is determined to challenge stereotypes. “There is a stigma when you reach 50 or 60. You become invisible,” she says.

But something clicked in her brain on that afternoon back in 2011. “Now I am out here doing stuff and I’m not going to retire anytime soon. I can even do this in my 80s. I’ve got another 20 years,” she adds.

Find out more here.