Why this house?
In c. 1880, Marie, a young Chatellerault woman, walked into the house of Mme Q., a wealthy widow, to start her 1st day as housekeeper. This simple & common occurrence started a train of events which would significantly change the expected course of her life and that of her family and which would eventually culminate in my husband Bruce and I moving into La Côte (2011), a fabulous house up on a hill in the Vienne.
As years went by, Marie, who was an excellent (Paris trained) seamstress, and her young sister Fernande, became very important to Mme Q., and they took on in effect, more of a role of “dames de compagnie”. In the summer, the two sisters would accompany Mme Q. to the house she had bought in the countryside north of Chatellerault.
Every summer(and some Easters), Mme Q. would decamp to La Côte with her regular servants and the two sisters Fernande and Marie. A photo of the time, taken outside the front door of La Côte, show Mme Q. seated with Fernande to her right and Marie to her left, whilst the servants are standing a few paces behind, clearly indicating that the sisters’ had a very different status to that of the regular domestics. Marriage to Abel, a painter, decorator and artist, (1884?) did not stop Marie from going to La Côte in the summer and nor did the birth of her son Fernand (1885). The whole family would accompany Mme Q. to La Côte. Mme Q., whose only daughter had died at the age of 12, took young Fernand, a bright and artistic child, under her wing. She provided the funds for Fernand to go to a school usually reserved to children of better off families.
When Mme Q. died in 1896, she left La Côte, her house in Chatellerault and a substantial sum of money to Marie and Fernande. This provided Fernande with the necessary dowry to marry several rungs higher on society’s ladder, Marie’s husband Abel to buy a statue making business in Poitiers and his son Fernand to pursue his art studies in Paris. The sisters and their families carried on going to La Côte every summer, year after year, as attested by the family photos showing different groupings of people either sitting in the shade of the big yew tree, in front of the house or on the lawn with the river Vienne in the background. Some of the photos show Fernand as a young boy in his school uniform, Fernand as a young man back from fishing in the Vienne, Fernand and his young wife Madeleine (married 1914) and eventually with their sons Jean-Marie (1915) and André (1919).
The fact that the house has remained in the family all this time and in a relatively good condition is entirely due to my grandfather Fernand’ s commitment both physically and financially and then of my father, André, and mother, Audrey. Together they improved and developed La Côte in order to enable the family to just swan in for the holidays in summer and in winter. The most important thing is that André and Audrey have passed on their love for the place to the whole family and to 100s of friends who have had the opportunity of staying at La Côte.
La Côte has now passed into the care of Bruce, myself, my sister Elizabeth and her husband Jay. Bruce and I are now living here and are acting as caretakers. We are the first to live on a permanent basis in this house for over 130 years… apart from a few months during the 2nd world war when my grandparents lived here as they considered this safer than living just above the train station in Poitiers.
