The smallest house on the estate, and the one with the most rooms per person. Two bedrooms, two sitting rooms, a wood burner, and a stone terrace of its own.
Maison des Artistes is the smallest house at Le Suquet and, room for room, the least crowded. Two bedrooms for four people, but four separate rooms downstairs — a lounge, a dining room, a kitchen and a second sitting room with the fire in it.
The stonework is the point. Exposed walls in almost every room, deep window reveals, iron grilles on the two upstairs dormers, and a flagged terrace outside the doors, framed by buddleia and an old wall. Upstairs, the two bedrooms run the length of the roof under old timbers, one of them with a shower built into the room behind a screen.
It suits two couples, or a family of four who would rather have space than share it. And when the estate is taken as a whole, it is the house people put the grandparents in, because it is quiet and it is close to everything.
The smallest house. Not a compromise — a choice.
Everything below belongs to this house alone — its own front door, its own kitchen, its own terrace. The pool, tennis court and grounds are shared with the rest of the estate.
Bare stone on two walls, a beamed ceiling and French doors straight out to the terrace. A corner sofa bed, a carved Indian door propped against the stone, and a tall tapestry chair that has clearly been in the family longer than the sofa.
A painted table seating six under a beamed ceiling, with a Périgord longcase clock standing against the stone. Windows on two sides, terracotta underfoot, and the lounge visible through the opening — so the house eats together even though the rooms are separate.
A deep stone hearth with a blue enamelled wood burner set into it, a heavy timber lintel and a still life above. Two barley-twist armchairs in faded red velvet either side, lanterns on the hearthstone. It is the reason this house works in October as well as July.
A galley, tiled in dark zellige, with solid timber units and a window over the counter looking into the trees. Oven, hob, fridge and coffee machine. Small, but arranged so that one person can cook in it without anybody else needing to leave the room.
The full width of the house under old roof timbers, with exposed stone on every wall and herringbone floors. There is room in it for a writing desk and an art deco commode without the bed feeling crowded — which is presumably how the house got its name.
Blue-black zellige, brass fittings and a basin, set into the corner of the bedroom against the stone and screened off with rattan rather than walled in. It is the best-looking washing space in the house, and it is worth knowing it is not behind a door before you decide who sleeps where.
Quieter and more conventional than its neighbour: stone on one wall, a beam overhead and a window into the trees. The shower room and the separate WC are both a few steps along the corridor.
Walk-in shower, pedestal basin, green mosaic underfoot and an iron-grilled window that looks into the trees rather than at a wall. It serves bedroom two, and a separate WC sits at the other end of the corridor.
Four separate rooms downstairs for four people, which is the whole argument for this house. Two bedrooms above, one with its own shower, sharing a WC and a shower room off the corridor.
Indicative layout · not to scale · both beds 160 × 200
Issigeac holds its market on Sunday morning and Eymet its night market on Tuesday. Monpazier and Beaumont-du-Périgord are two of the better bastides in the south-west, and neither takes long to reach.
For wine, Château Tour des Gendres, Château de la Jaubertie and L'Ancienne Cure are all about a quarter of an hour away. For the river, canoes from La Roque-Gageac down to Beynac, the Maxange caves, and the beach at Pont de Vicq. And for the days when nobody wants to move, there is the pool and there are the cedars.
Artistes is the one to add when a larger group has filled the bigger houses and still needs a quiet corner for two more.
Dates and rates are online. If you want this house together with one or two of the others, write to us instead — it's quicker than trying to make the calendar do it.