The house is decorated with items that the Bigelows have collected since they first met in the Philippines, where Mrs. Bigelow was in the Peace Corps and Mr. Bigelow was a graduate student. A leather jacket made in Burkina Faso hangs on one wall; a traditional Thai cupboard is used to hold manuscripts on the ground floor, and a piece of Chin silk, given to the couple in Rangoon to celebrate the birth of the first of their three children, is displayed in the entrance hall.
When Philippines RPCV Linda Bigelow and her husband Lee decided to buy a house in the South of France, they were sure of one thing: they wanted to be part of the village life
Living in the Heart of the Village
By LIZA FOREMAN
Published: June 30, 2009
When Linda and Lee Bigelow decided to buy a house in the South of France, they were sure of one thing: they wanted to be part of the village life. The seclusion of a private villa in the countryside, they said, just wasn't for them.
So they were happy when they found an old four-story town house in the historic Alpes Maritimes village of about 3,500 residents. "I love the activity, seeing the people in the streets and hearing the kids play," said Mrs. Bigelow, 70, an Indiana native.
The house stands on a stone street that is just over a meter wide (four feet). It is so narrow that a neighbor once leaned out her window to tell them that they weren't cooking the pasta correctly in their kitchen across the way.
The Bigelows are no strangers to France, having lived in Paris for several years in the 1980s during Mr. Bigelow's 30-year career as a foreign service officer for the United States State Department. Mr. Bigelow is from Texas.
They were living in Bangkok in 1985 when they bought the top two floors of this four-story house with the idea of turning it into a retirement home. Then, in 1989, they bought the rest of the building - the ground floor and basement levels.
At first they spent summers here, then moved into the 208-square-meter (2,238-square-foot) property full time in 1995. Over the last two decades they have gradually restored the house, which they described as a wreck.
"We took a chance on it when we bought it because it wasn't very desirable," said Mr. Bigelow, 72, who now works for the State Department's international visitor program. "Our house was the most wretched looking on the street, a patchwork of cement and drainpipes. The shutters were turning to powder, and the windows, though charming, were warped and leaky."
The date "1851" is engraved in the stone lintel above the Bigelows' front door but the couple thinks the house actually may be older. And the basement walls still have some old iron rings that once were used to tether animals.
Now the walnut front door, which was covered in grime, has a buffed shine and the house's facade has been painted a warm yellow. The interior walls, made of a hodgepodge of local rock and stone, all have been covered with a smooth plaster finish.
The Bigelows said they have lost count of how much they have spent on the house's renovation over the years. They did some of the repairs and decorating themselves; the rest was done by local craftsmen.
Prices for a town house, or maison de village, in Saint-Jeannet are around 3,500 euros per square meter ($451 per square foot), according to Frederic Barca, a real estate manager for Agence des Baous here. "The market is a little bit difficult but not as difficult as other cities nearby such as Nice and Antibes," Mr. Barca said. "We don't have as much luxury products here so we haven't suffered so much from the downturn," he said.
As they worked on the house, the Bigelows changed the way most of the interior space is used, in part to meet their own needs and to take advantage of the panoramic views from the upper floors.
The basement, once a cave, or storage area, now is a garage. They also installed a darkroom for Mrs. Bigelow's photography.
The ground level, where the previous owners had a living room and kitchen, has been turned into two guest rooms. Upstairs is the master suite and a third guest room that also doubles as a study. The house has a total of three and a half bathrooms.
At the top of the house is an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen. On a clear day the Bigelows can see as far as the Isles des Lerins, the four islands in the Mediterranean off the coast, which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.
The top floor originally was used as a hayloft and grainery, complete with a pulley to haul up the bales and a chute to send feed down to the basement.
The house is decorated with items that the Bigelows have collected since they first met in the Philippines, where Mrs. Bigelow was in the Peace Corps and Mr. Bigelow was a graduate student. A leather jacket made in Burkina Faso hangs on one wall; a traditional Thai cupboard is used to hold manuscripts on the ground floor, and a piece of Chin silk, given to the couple in Rangoon to celebrate the birth of the first of their three children, is displayed in the entrance hall.
The living room has a foldable sofa and armchairs made from water buffalo hide and teak by a Thai priest. And a giant tribal headdress measuring almost two meters (six feet) long hangs above the dining table. "This is a house which truly reflects our lives," Mrs. Bigelow said.
