The house the estate grew around. Four bedrooms, a fireplace built for a different century, and a terrace under an old vine that does most of the work between May and September.
Maison du Seigneur is the original house of Le Suquet — the one the owners lived in before the farm buildings around it were restored, one at a time, into the other four. It is the largest, the best sited, and its terrace opens straight onto the west-facing courtyard that the whole estate is arranged around.
Four bedrooms for eight people, ten with the sofa bed. The master bedroom is on the ground floor with its own bathroom, and it is the only bedroom on the estate you can reach without a step. Downstairs there is a contemporary oak kitchen open to a table for eight, and a sitting room arranged around a monumental stone fireplace. Outside, a paved terrace under an old vine.
Around it, eleven hectares of meadow, woodland and old cedars, shared with the four other houses on the estate: heated pool, tennis court, pétanque piste and pizza oven. And, over the sunflower fields, the towers of the neighbouring château.
Issigeac and Eymet markets, the bastides, the vineyards of Bergerac and Monbazillac, canoes on the Dordogne — and back to the pool by five.
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.
It takes up one entire side of the ground floor: a king bed, a sofa bed, two windows onto the park and its own bathroom. Everything on one level, not a single step from the terrace — the only bedroom on the estate you can say that about, and comfortably the best one.
Contemporary oak, fully equipped — oven, hob, microwave, dishwasher, coffee machine — opening onto a long family table where eight sit without anyone's elbows in play. The French windows give directly onto the terrace, which is why, in summer, the dining room mostly gets used for breakfast.
The real sitting room of the house from May to September. An old vine covers it completely — proper shade, not a stretched sail — and eight rattan armchairs sit around a long teak table. It faces west onto the courtyard, which is why it is cool at lunch and still warm at ten. In the evening the lights go on and nobody goes back indoors much before midnight.
A monumental stone fireplace, large enough for a fire in October and for candles in July. Sofas and armchairs around an old low table, French windows open to the park, and walls thick enough to keep the room cool at the worst of the afternoon.
Bath, shower, WC and basin, tiled throughout in brown zellige. It is the only proper bath in the house, and it belongs to the master bedroom — worth knowing before the group starts allocating rooms.
Under the old roof timbers: exposed beams, timber panelling, a queen bed and a brass sconce on either side. A basin in the room; the shower room and separate WC are on the landing.
The warmest of the three upstairs: pale timber walls, heavy oak beams and a mullioned window that takes the morning sun. Queen bed, basin in the room.
Pale walls, an antique armoire and brass sconces: the quietest room in the house, set back from the landing. Queen bed, basin in the room, robes and towels as everywhere else.
Four bedrooms over two floors. The living rooms run in a line along the terrace side; the family room and its bathroom sit at one end, on the level. Upstairs, three bedrooms off a corridor, each with a basin, sharing a shower room and a separate WC.
Indicative layout · not to scale
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.
Maison du Seigneur books well alongside its neighbours — close enough to share dinner, separate enough to avoid sharing a kitchen.
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.