About us

Eight Houses, Chosen One Bend at a Time

The collection was assembled slowly by two restorers and a hotelier who kept driving the same valley road and noting which buildings had been put in exactly the right place by someone a century or more ago. Mills, inns and ferry houses were always built where the river turned, because that is where the current does useful work and where the crossing was easiest. Those same positions now give the best rooms in the valley, and restoring them has been mostly a matter of undoing bad decisions made in the nineteen-seventies.

Work is done in the order that matters: roofs, damp, windows, heating and sound insulation first, then plaster, floors and joinery using local lime, oak and stone. Only afterwards does anything decorative happen. Rooms are furnished with pieces bought at regional auctions and a few well-made new items, beds carry proper mattresses and heavy linen, and every apartment has a working kitchen rather than a token hob. Wi-fi is genuinely fast, because a surprising number of guests now stay for a month and work from the terrace.

We employ people from the villages the houses stand in — housekeepers, a carpenter, two cooks and a gardener — and we buy bread, cheese, fruit, wine and fish from producers within twenty kilometres. Guests receive a printed map of those producers and are encouraged to use it. The riverbank in front of each house is maintained with the local fishing association: willows pollarded, invasive plants pulled, and a short stretch left completely wild.