The quintessentially French house

Blogging friends have been asking me if our house is typical of French architecture.  In France styles of houses vary from region to region.

Our house, like the house I showed you that is up for sale,  is what you call a 'maison de maître'.  

Often in the small villages and towns here in Normandy you find a couple of houses similar to this.  Inside they are rational and symmetrical. 

Smaller in size and in budget is something called a longère normande.  Either all stone wall or with wooden beams showing on the outside, the building is long, low and cosy.  Typically in these houses the rooms will lead from one into another without a corridor.

Quite often they have a thatched roof,  with irises planted along the top of the roof.  The roots help keep the thatch in place!

Sometimes farms became so big that they are called 'fermes fortifiées'  fortified farms.  This beautifully restored example isn't far from us.

If we then go back up the scale in size and budget, the next step above the 'maisons de maître'  is the 'manoir'.  If the house has beams showing on the outside walls, it's called 'un manoir anglo-normand'. 

These large homes were built to impress, mostly around the turn of the century.  The fancy brickwork sometimes got quite ornate.   Along the coast at Deauville and Trouville there was real competition to build the biggest and most sophisticated.

They even got excited about chimney stacks!

The home below is still a manoir, not yet a chateau, and slightly more sedate in style.  

Then we go up to the real château.  You already know this one that belongs to our friends at Emalleville

or Monsieur and Madame de Roumilly's château at Miserey,

but there are plenty more around here, including this gem, that I am dying to see inside.  It's being beautifully restored, using the best craftsmen in the region.   Maybe soon ...

Voila, a little architectural tour of this part of the world. I hope you enjoyed it.