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En Bosc
The long stone facade of En Bosc with roses climbing it

The house

Six bedrooms, and no bad one

Guests
12
Bedrooms
6
Beds
9
Baths
4.5

How it works

A long house, so nobody is stacked on top of anybody

En Bosc runs long rather than tall. The bedrooms are spread along its length instead of piled up a staircase, which is why twelve people can share it for a fortnight without getting on each other’s nerves. Couples at one end, children under the roof, and a landing between them wide enough to sit in.

Walls a metre thick do the rest. The house stays cool through an August afternoon without air conditioning, and the covered terrace means the middle of the day happens outside but in shade.

The entrance porch running along the front of the house

The bedrooms

Six rooms, 9 beds, all of them in stone

There is no box room made up to look like a bedroom. Every one has stone, a proper window and space to put a suitcase down.

Three rooms with king beds
Two of them ensuite. Two of the three also take a baby cot and a fold-out sofa bed, so a couple with small children can keep everyone in one room.
Three rooms with a pair of twins
Small queens rather than singles, each with a wardrobe. They share a bathroom and a shower between the three.
And a half bath off the summer room
Which is the one that matters when twelve people are coming in from the pool.
  • A bedroom with a king bed in a dark wood frame against bare stone, a window onto the garden

    01

    The garden room

    King

    Bare stone on two walls, a wooden floor, and a window low enough to see the garden from the bed. The lightest of the rooms in the morning.

  • A bedroom with a carved wooden four-poster king bed on a terracotta floor

    02

    The four-poster room

    King

    The one people ask for. A carved four-poster on terracotta tile, with an equally carved bench that came the same way the furniture did. Cool at midday, which matters in August.

  • A bedroom with a king bed, a stone wall and a skylight

    03

    The far room

    King

    At the end of the run, and the quietest of them. Stone, timber, and nothing else going on.

  • A bedroom with two carved sleigh beds beneath a window

    04

    The long room

    Twin pair

    Two carved sleigh beds that push together or stay apart, which makes this the room that solves most sleeping arrangements. French window to the field.

  • A bedroom under the roof with two twin sleigh beds and a skylight

    05

    The pair under the roof

    Twin pair

    Up under the roof with a skylight over the beds. Children claim this one and the next by about the second day.

  • A bedroom with two twin sleigh beds, a stone wall and an oak lintel

    06

    The second pair

    Twin pair

    Its twin along the landing — stone, an oak lintel over the window, and the same skylight trick.

The covered terrace running the length of the south side
The terrace
The pool on the lawn in front of the house
The pool
Trees on the property backlit by low morning sun
The grounds

The bathrooms

Four and a half, for twelve people

It is the ratio that makes a large group work, and the thing people forget to check.

  • A bathroom with a bath, a vessel basin on an antique wooden table and patterned tiling

    01

    The tiled bathroom

    A full bath, and a basin set on an old wooden table rather than a vanity unit — which is the sort of decision that runs through the whole house.

  • A bathroom with a bath and shower, a vessel basin and wooden panelling

    02

    The panelled bathroom

    Bath with a shower over it, under a beam. The armoire is doing the job a fitted cupboard would do in a newer house.

Everywhere else

Four places to eat, and two of them are outside

  • The living room under open timber trusses with a mezzanine above

    01

    The living room

    The best room in the house. Open trusses the full height of the roof, a mezzanine above, and enough seating that twelve people can be in here without anyone perching.

  • A deep stone fireplace with armchairs drawn up to it

    02

    The fireplace end

    A stone fireplace deep enough to stand in, and the reason this is a spring and autumn house as much as a summer one.

  • The dining room with a long table laid for a meal beside a stone fireplace

    03

    The dining room

    One table, everybody at it. This is the room the house was restored around, and the reason it suits a reunion rather than a couple.

  • The kitchen with a range cooker, stone walls and a terracotta floor

    04

    The kitchen

    A proper range, terracotta underfoot, and room for more than one cook — which, with twelve people, there always is.

  • A long refectory table in the stone-walled room off the kitchen

    05

    The second table

    A long refectory table off the kitchen, for the meals that do not need the dining room. Most of them, in practice.

  • The covered terrace with a long table looking out over lavender and open fields

    06

    The terrace

    Covered, so it works in heat and in rain, and long enough to seat everyone. Lavender on one side and wheat to the horizon on the other. Where the evenings happen.

  • The upstairs landing with timber posts, an armoire and a table with chairs

    07

    The attic landing

    Not a corridor so much as a room you pass through. Somewhere to read while the rest of the house is loud.

The pool with the house and its tower behind it

Outside

A private pool, a pétanque court and a table tennis table

The pool is private and serviced through the season, with loungers and a pergola for the part of the afternoon nobody wants to spend in full sun. There is a pétanque court, a table tennis table under cover, a picnic table under the willow, and a private forest beyond that.

Water
From the property’s own well, and good to drink from the kitchen tap
Laundry
Washer, dryer and a line at the back of the house
Built
1776, restored over nine years. 250 this year