Restoring a 400-year-old French property: an Englishman's award-winning journey

On October 25, on the stage of the Salle Delorme at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, stood Ron Alldridge, a retired Englishman from the south-east of England, who had come all the way from Varages, a village of 1,200 inhabitants in Var where he has lived since 2002.

He was one of 10 winners of the Prix René Fontaine, a prize hosted by the association Maisons Paysannes de France (MPF) for 40 years now and which rewards the best renovation efforts of old and contemporary houses of France.

MPF was not able to confirm whether it had ever rewarded another Englishman, only confirming it is extremely rare. He applied by pure coincidence, seeing an advert on a website. 

Mr Alldridge has been the owner of La Maison du Faïencier, a stone house built in 1609, since 2002, the year he moved to France. It was the 70th house he had visited. 

It was in a derelict state but he did not care. He only saw potential.

From the winters of 2003 to 2004, he and his ex-wife spent ten months restoring its 440 square metres, working seven days a week, hiring 73 employees.

“Every inch of that house has a story,” said Mr Alldridge during a face-to-face conversation in a café in Saint-Martin-du-Var (Alpes-Maritimes) during which he kept sketching on blank paper and showed old pictures of the construction site on his computer.

Conversing with Ron over two hours was to witness how much place these ten months hold in his life and heart.

It was about the brass sinks he imported from England, the ideas he got touring shops, the mutual friendships he made with craftsmen, the time he almost got scammed out of €60,000 or how baffled he was when he learned that both a double-door in pure walnut, and 400-year-old flagstones, were once considered suitable for landfill.

A former BBC Radio London journalist who moved to France upon buying the property, he became a 10-month homme à tout faire (handyman) on his construction site before becoming a businessman to run La Maison du Faïencier as a gîte for nearly 20 years.

During our conversation, his voice cracked several times, overwhelmed by emotion.

“It was the first time that any professional organisation said that it was a great job,” he said about the award.

Francis Léger, the president of the jury, said: “What we awarded was the careful and respectful safeguarding process Mr Alldridge undertook when restoring that building.”

“The walkway is pure flagstones from a time when Shakespeare was writing his plays,” he said, his voice breaking again. “400 years ago. [...] It is just extraordinary. What do you do with that? You throw it away?”

We spoke with Mr Alldridge about his life trajectory – work at La Maison du Faïencier, English sprinkled with few technical French words here-and-there, and life in France. It is a textbook example of who The Connexion writes for and about.

We are in 2002 and you are looking for peace and quiet…

Peace and quiet but not only that. Down south here, you have a lot of people who want a little villa, brick built or cement-block built, straight walls to enjoy themselves, go by the swimming pool and enjoy a drink. That has never been my thing, really.

This house is just very different. It has huge character, history, no straight walls, literally. No right angle. Everything is uppity-bippity. It took us three seconds to decide. It was the one.

What did you find, touring it?

It was in a rough state. Only six of the 18 rooms were liveable (he starts sketching the house’s plan on a sheet of paper). The ground floor is like a square split in four roughly equal parts. It is 12 metres wide and 15 metres deep with a garden and a pool. You walk into the main hall, one long hall, that splits the house in half. It was like a hospital ward, awful. The kitchen, on the bottom right, was completely undone, untouched.

Did the house cost twice as much to renovate than to buy?

Buying was a bit less than €400,000. We had planned an €80,000 budget with my ex-wife. Halfway through the renovation, we knew we had to double it. All in all, it’s a €600,000 job. We did not want to do any odd thing with the house.

Where do you start?

First you look for a builder to do the gros oeuvre, the big stuff. I met six in Toulon, Aix-en-Provence or Marseille. Some did not bother coming, those who came disparaged it saying “cache-misère” (a cover-up job), ‘How many skeletons are behind these walls?’ that type of question. They didn’t want to touch it. I despaired.

I eventually found someone who, I was told, was a crook and I had to be dead careful. I employed him, signed his contract. We would have marteau-piqueurs (jackhammer) going all over the place, creating rubble everywhere, sometimes halfway down my leg. That guy plays the charmer and writes me a devis of €60,000. He was taking the p***. 

We ended up doing a DIY goulot [a tube for excavated rubble] by cutting off the bottom of plastic filters and got a lot of ropes and made a goulot for about a €1,000. 

I remember the day when he stood on the other side of the place, looking at me. That’s the type of thing you have to deal with.

It seems there is a story behind everything that happened…

You know, it is ten months of my life. Every day for ten months your head spins.

All the robinerie (taps and fittings) for example, are solid brass from Barber Wilsons in England which, as far as I know, is the only company left in Europe to make solid brass. Beautiful stuff. In a house like this, you cannot go to Lapeyre and put chrome. 

The sinks from the bathrooms (laughs) – there’s a story behind everything. We were in Avignon doing a tourist thing and saw this boutiquey kitchen stuff. It was the time when the new mode was to have your work surface there in the bathroom and put something on top, not sink it through. 

We were looking at all these basins, costing €750. We had six bathrooms to shuffle. When we came back, I noticed that the last faïencier who was making fine china on the spot was right by the house. 

I told him we needed six pieces. He came back with six pieces, €120 each.

A winner of the award in 2024 told a local newspaper that “you need to be a handyman. I had to improvise myself as a plumber, electrician and carpenter”. Did you go through the same thing?

You have to be a bit of an entrepreneur, in spirit. I was the guy who stood there. I would wake up every morning thinking “there’s a solution to everything, don’t worry about it”. I made the decisions but they had the skills. Within the 73 people employed, 10 of them were very good.

I tried to employ architects actually. They were not up to it. They told me it was crazy to do anything about it. 

Where was the fear?

As I mentioned, only six of the 18 rooms were liveable in. The previous owner was a French lady who, it seemed, wanted to run a Bed & Breakfast but never did. She lived elsewhere and did not care about it. Locals would tell us it was the place where kids roamed around every night. It was kind of like a haunted house. We heard a lot of stories, interesting stories. 

(He goes back to the drawing) Where do you start? We put the kitchen on the bottom right, overlooking the garden. It was obvious, common sense stuff. But we needed a dining room to the other part of the main hall. 

So, we cut the red brick wall. Three guys worked on it with marteau-piqueurs for days. Can you imagine? Four hundred year-old dust, fine yucky dust. In doing that, it made the corridor far narrower. We then put in a double-door to bring in more light. Again, common sense.

Was it, really? Did it need a double-door? 

What do you do? Who is going to build a double-door? You cannot have a solid wood double-door.. Then you think, “I need a metal one” and hire a blacksmith. It goes on and on, one idea after the other.

Going back to the walnut door. It’s about choice. You could have thrown it. Don’t you think it is just a matter of perspective?

It is a choice. You would not buy a 400-year-old house if you did not care.

So, you fell in love?

Oh yeah, it is gorgeous. But it was crap.

But what did you see?

Potential. This walkway, down to here, is pure flagstones which were there 400 years ago when Shakespeare was writing his plays (his voice breaks). 400 years ago. It is the same flagstone in the cathedral 20 minutes down the road. What do you do with that? You throw it away? It’s just beautiful. You know when I first lived there by myself and I heard a noise I thought “Am I allowed here?”, this place has been lived in for 400 years. 

It is quite scary sometimes (laughs). It’s got a soul. It’s got character. There’s no straight wall. Anytime there is a friend coming around, I show them the walls, biscornu they say in French. Everything is wonky.

What was it like climbing on that stage in Paris?

Here we are again, I am getting very emotional. What they had done is that they put a montage of all the winners and the photographs of the building. 

After 23 years of working by myself on this building, it was the first time that any professional organisation said that it was a great job – besides friends and family.

Did you get recognition in Varages?

A few people, mainly when we did the facade, would walk by but very few. 

I am basically the tolerated Englishman who bought one of their nicest houses that none of them wanted.

You are in a complicated situation. You represent one out of 250,000 Brits living in France. You are part of an army of people giving new life to a village. The problem is that you have to face looks from people telling themselves “we need a Brit to do that”.

(Silence). It is exactly that. But I mean what do you do? I speak decent French, I married twice and my first wife is French, I am not one of these British only able to speak a broken French like “je voudrais bien baguette”. I do not blame them, many of my friends are.

Did you expect to win?

Oh Goddy no! I did not know what it was all about. I only applied because it was fun and I think more people should know about this. I wish I had known about this in 2004.