We came across La Taillede and fell in love with this magical place about a year before we had any hope of putting in an offer for it! We had decided with my (Ali's) parents that we wanted to have a family project, involving forestry, plenty of animals, holiday gites and our own produce; all bio, all ECO and with the aim of being as self sufficient as possible. This is a massive project for a couple with a young family (Olea was a toddler at the time and I was pregnant with Simeon) but we felt we could manage something like this with the support, practical skills & enthusiasm of my parents, Nigel & Gina, and with a fair bit of clueless optimism & madness of course!
So, on day ONE of researching the market, May 2013, at up to 1000m altitude to a seemingly forgotten hill farm we found La Taillede sitting majestically in front of the snow topped & locally sacred Mount Canigou just above the village of Corsavy in the Pyrennees Orientales of Languedoc Roussillon,. We were one hour drive away from the coast & where we were living at the time; in a villa near Collioure, SW France.
We followed the estate agent up the bumpy drive for what seemed like forever; i wondered where on Earth she was taking us; but on arrival we all gawped at the main house; I remember hearing my Mum gasp!
We all knew we could live here happily pretty much straight away; it just had that feeling for us, and that was before we saw the Shepherds cottage and the incredible arched barn attached to it (once used for the shepherds lucky sheep!). This was to become my parents house 3 years later.
The main house, a big old rambling farm house, had 2 separate apartments, one with 3 bedrooms & 1 with 2 bedrooms; ideal for us all to begin with. The roofs were in great condition, the views were magnificent, and with over 50 hectares of forest and pasture (although unmanaged & totally overgrown), we were sold! But couldn't buy it.... yet. Hmmm..... what were we doing here other than dreaming? We felt deflated.
Then we met the previous owners; a collaboration of sustainability scientists from all over the world. The main owner was sa guy called Dennis Meadows, who in the 70’s wrote a well known book called ‘The Limits to Growth’. This was a report to warn us all to change our ways, as you can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet. If only we listened!
The previous owners dreams of turning La Taillede into an international meeting place for scientists to discuss environmental issues were crushed when they were unable to get the permission to do what they wanted with the buildings. We got on with them all very well and unbelievably, they even cancelled other viewings as they decided they wanted us to be the next guardians of La Taillede. They were even happy to wait up to 2 years until we were ready to buy! As it turned out, the notaires took so long to do the paperwork, probably because they thought ours was a very strange situation, involving a lot of trust between the sellers & the buyers. We were all mostly waiting on them in the end, not us, but we got there eventually. We signed the compromis de vente in 22nd April 2014, a very long meeting with a lot of people in a small, hot room & baby Simi wasn't loving it, but we did it, and completed at the end of July 2014.
Happy!
