Real Life: Running a gite in Charente-Maritime

From running a hotel in the UK to gîtes in France, Robert and Victoria Milton have put a warm welcome at the heart of their businesses…

Pre-Brexit, pre-Covid and before the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/ Gaza, when life and prices appeared normal, Victoria and I were running a successful 29-bedroom boutique hotel on the south coast, in the picturesque Georgian market town of Lymington. Alongside the rooms, responsibility for two diverse award-winning restaurants and, of course, 50 staff, had their daily challenges which one day, we’d love to share in the form of a book Memoirs of a hotel owner. We’ve both been in hospitality all our lives.

During our 14 years of owning the hotel, we had a very enjoyable journey. It was exhausting at times but immensely rewarding, working with numerous fantastic characters and meeting new guests with amazing tales from around the world, as well as our regulars – we had quite a following. The food was always fantastic at the hotel, although rushed staff meals off the hot plate were the norm for us. Having an extensive wine portfolio was memorable on special occasions, and we organised wine dinners for something extra special. However, life has many chapters and over numerous Sunday evening roast dinners, pondering what the next chapter for us would be, we hatched a plan to move abroad. Anyone who knows Victoria knows she’s an avid researcher and completer-finisher, so the ‘seeds’ for the next adventure were being sown.

Would it be France, Spain or Portugal? We eventually focused our search on the Charente-Maritime, on the west coast of France, as it ticked the following boxes: French culture and architecture; a microclimate second only to the south of France; good transport links with flights to and from Bordeaux and Bergerac, TGV route to Paris, ferries from the UK and the A10 running down through France; local attractions within an hour of Bordeaux, like Cognac, La Rochelle, Medoc, St-Emillion and the coast; and we’d be living in one of the world’s most significant wine regions.

We made numerous trips to the region, spending two or three days at a time. Eventually we stumbled across an agent immobilier who, unlike UK agents, said she’d help us find our perfect property. This culminated in us taking a week away from the hotel and booking in 12 house viewings.

We played a game with the agent, suggesting she listed what she thought would be our top three properties in advance and place them in a sealed envelope – we would see how right she was at the end of the week. By the fourth exhausting day of viewings, in the afternoon, the magic button was hit and has shone brightly ever since.

They say in life when something is right, be it a partner, pet, business opportunity or house, you know instinctively and run with it. Well, that was Le Manoir du Mürier (as it was to be named by us due to the mûrier or mulberry trees in the courtyard in front of the house). As soon as we approached it from the top of the drive, we felt a warm glow.

The Charentaise-style house had been in one French family for over 30 years, used as their summer residence and was certainly not configured to accommodate gîtes. Luckily, we love a challenge!

The owners had lit the four enormous log fires prior to the initial viewing and made the house very welcoming, which meant that our first trip around was with rose-tinted glasses. The icing on this magnificent tour came when viewing the 15 acres of grounds. Seeing the lake dropping down to the moat in the back garden, we both said, “wouldn’t this be perfect as we could get married here”.

French property law states that if the full asking price is met, then it’s yours and you can’t be outbid so we did exactly that; why dither? The process is quite exhaustive for both buyer and seller and probably harder than in the UK, but our agent found us a superb English-speaking notaire (solicitor) who was meticulous.

On the day before completing, we visited the house, only to find that everything had been stripped out, even the light bayonets and bulbs, leaving bare wires. We declined to sign until light could be resumed.

The norm for most house moves, whether within the UK or abroad, is to get a removal company on board, but we don’t do anything normally. We bought the largest container possible, popped it on the drive of the house we had just sold in the UK and proceeded to fill it with our possessions. In theory, it was supposed to travel from Southampton to Bordeaux over the course of approximately a month. Due to delays in the Suez Canal, we eventually got all our belongings a month late, but made a significant saving.

The plan for the house over the course of a year was to transform the existing footprint allowing for a three- bedroom and a one-bedroom gîte accommodation, and then hit the road running at the start of the following year’s season. Being from hospitality we felt that this was achievable.

Starting a business from scratch in a foreign country is no mean feat, however, a big lesson learned was that French artisans are in no rush and are normally booked out for months, so this wasn’t going to be a quick fix. If you’re not planning on doing the work yourselves, please do your homework. Luckily, we are always up for a challenge, and now we are seasoned decorators and gardeners.

A year later, having converted this Charentaise house into our new business venture and home, we’ve had many highs and lows, but the highs have significantly outweighed the lows. The food is fantastic and who doesn’t love the wines of Bordeaux?

Our guests so far have been multinational, predominately from France but have also hailed from the UK, Germany, Belgium, Holland, the USA and even Australia. Our second letting season was very busy.

So, would we recommend taking a leap of faith and running a gîte business in France? Hell, yes! It’s not for the fainthearted and you’ve got to be prepared to embrace the French culture and way of life – which I’m convinced is good for your health.

France and England are so close in distance, albeit with a stretch of water in between, but the culture and pace and way of life is vastly different; it’s more than just driving on the opposite side of the road.

Our property dates back to 1688, is a former hunting lodge once owned by the Marquis des Adjots and was also a weekend retreat for the bishops of Bordeaux. We constantly remind ourselves that we’re custodians of the building, and we intend to leave a positive mark on its history.

And finally, if you’re wondering whether the properties in the envelope matched our favourites, well done Nicole – she put the house we bought at number one.

We did indeed have our wedding here at the manoir, last September, and what a truly memorable occasion it was for 50 of our close friends and family.

Find out more at manoirmurier.com

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