Left: typically Gascony above: the house that Sue Aran fell head over heels for...
We returned to our respective lives, unable to stop daydreaming about the ruin. Often, we reminded each other of meeting the elderly couple, Jeanette and Roger, who owned the ruin, as welcoming to foreigners as any two people could be. They spoke a Gascon patois almost indecipherable, especially Roger, but each possessed a joie de vivre that was clearly communicable. In October we decided to go back to the Gers to see if the magic was still there. We stepped off the plane in Bordeaux, picked up a rental car and drove south. Once actually at the ruin, we felt like we had come home. We hadn’t the faintest idea that 8 years after purchasing the property we would be mired in the French court system, tied up in legal bureaucratic knots and intrigues and separated by more than an ocean.
We purchased our half hectare (1 acre) property for 70,000 euros, approximately 100,000 dollars. The whole process took 6 months. The following year we returned and interviewed local builders and chose one highly recommended by the only other American couple we knew there. As a former architectural designer, I drew up a set of plans and researched local building codes. I submitted six different sets of plans, each summarily rejected by the head of the local building department, Monsieur Lafitte. However, after visiting him in person, the plans were approved.