LE MAS BLANC ÙZES
Accommodation & Rooms facilities:
- Pool: Yes
- Private Parking: Yes
- Breakfast: Included
- Dine-in: No
- Wi-fi: Yes
- Air Conditioning: Fan Only
Emma from Nîmes and Lorenzo from Bologna, left their jobs to help to renovate, run and transform a family farmhouse into an authentic Provençal guesthouse.
This is a love story with a bigger purpose. The saying goes “New year, new me” and this couldn’t have been more true for the young couple who met in Paris back in 2019 on the first day of the year.
At the time, Emma, who studied hôtellerie, worked in HR for Melia Hotels, while Lorenzo lived in Switzerland and worked as Senior Analyst at the HQ of a multinational company.
Fast forward 6 months, they married and together embarked on the adventure of their lives.
Lorenzo and Emma tell us “ we wanted to improve our quality of life, rather than our career and salary; to take care of something familiar, authentic, with real sustainable values, to live a slow life, but still working.
Le Mas Blanc is in Uzès, a Medieval village that still preserves its authenticity to this day! Uzès is in what is called the Gard Provençal, an area considered as the getaway to Provençe, where you can enjoy the same nature and famously beautiful landscapes, but with fewer crowds.
The estate dates back to 1770 when the creator of the liquorice brand Zan, today bought by Haribo, owned it. The Farmhouse was then preserved by three more generations before Cedric, the current owner and Emma's father. The house has always been an authentic raw farmhouse with farmers running the lands and managing farm animals. Out of the 63 hectares of land, half were cultivated with wheat and vineyards and the remaining crops were and still are woods.
Before the new and young approach to the business given by Lorenzo and Emma, which not only helped with the renovation of the property, but also saw Le Mas Blanc finally having an online presence via booking platforms and the creation of their website, Cedric and Laurence, a former doctor and a nurse, worked on a 45 years restoration of the farm to slowly turn it into an authentic Provençal guesthouse. They never managed to take holidays as these were spent at the farmhouse with a trowel in their hands to keep restoring the property. Now Cedric leads the restoration and Laurence the gardening.
The local community support has always been at the core of the project. The lands are currently exploited by local farmers and the property restoration required the involvement of local artisans specialized in stone, floor tile and iron, as well as an upholsterer from Nimes for the decorations. With their art passion, they also help local artists to exhibit their work and organize art stages at the house.
The Mas is open all year round - during normal circumstances - and at the moment they offer two apartments (gîtes) and two B&B rooms (chambres d'hôtes), but they will have a new gîte ready by summer 2021.
Summer offers lovely sunny and warm days, great for painting and relaxing by the pool, while during winter the house is cosy and charming and you can enjoy a hot Jacuzzi, walks around the woods and truffles hunting.
AUTHENTICITY
Le Mas Blanc is the typical Provençal property.
Despite some local beliefs, not all old - or new - properties in the provençal countryside can be considered as such, because the authentic Mas Provençal is more than just a house with ancient walls. The people of Le Mas Blanc have been working since 1770 to maintain its authenticity and create a better version of the house from generation to generation with the single work of the members of the family.
The current family is fully employed and involved, taking care of the construction, gardening, lands management, development, finance, marketing, social media and online presence and hosting guests.
“We are the authentic Maison (Mas) Provençal because we fully live it and we have a history to tell and show to travellers looking for an experience rather than just a cosy place to stay. Today, our Mas Provençal is a guesthouse for travellers looking for the real Provençal experience.”
A traditional homemade breakfast is served in the main court surrounded by paintings from local artists.
The family itself are local art collectors and an exhibition gallery is available for those interested to admire the work or learn about the stories of artists like Cocteau, Gordes, Dermit, Ponce de Leon, Chantal Porras and more.
“Emma's grandad, Jean, was an amateur painter and he always had an atelier in the house. He was really discrete and he never exposed his paintings. Today, Jean is too old and he can no longer paint. To value his work, we decided to exhibit his paintings.” Lorenzo recovered his atelier to paint and share it with like-minded travellers and it has all the necessary equipment for oil painting to paint en plein air as a Provençal artist.
The morning at Le Mas offers the perfect weather to read by the pool and relax, or play petanque! Free lemonade is available by the pool to drink and regenerate.
There are four hectares of gardens surrounding the property and a picnic can be arranged to your liking in the shade of truffle oaks, cypresses or olive, plane, almond, fig trees.
For music lovers, Emma and her grandma are pianists and upon request can share their two concert pianos. Playing with these instruments under the vaults of an old farmhouse provençal is a unique experience for any pianist.
In addition, they can also organize events like wedding receptions, anniversary parties or work reunions.
The family hopes one day perhaps to open a restaurant too, but in the meantime, they will be happy to recommend local restaurants for dinner and place a reservation for you. At night don't forget to look at the sky, the light pollution is almost non-existent and the stars are beautiful!
“We really want to keep our familiar identity. Somewhere in the future, we imagine Le Mas Blanc as the art destination in Provence where art lovers, amateur or professional artists would come to meet each other and share their passion.”
WHAT TO DO/SEE
Visit The Cathedral Saint-Théodorit and its tower named Fenestrelle which resembles the Italian tower of Pisa.
Uzès is the first duke of France and you can visit the authentic monumental duke building with the tower overlooking the surroundings in the city centre.
The real beauty of Uzès is also in the people and in the local markets run on Wednesday and Saturday morning which have been recognized as some of the most beautiful of Occitanie. There are also town festivals for unforgettable summer nights. If you love history and you are passionate about antiques, the area is famous for its antique dealers too.
Only 10 minutes from Uzès there is Pont du Gard, UNESCO World Heritage, a Roman aqueduct, the highest of all and the best preserved.
There are several hiking trails through gorges called Les Concluses de Lussan and under 1-hour drive you can reach Nîmes, Arles and Avignon and Aigues-Mortes.
For those in search of the little gems of Provence, Le Mas Blanc is also about one hour from Gordes, Roussillon and Baux de Provençe.
What does slow living mean to you?
“Slow life is a lifestyle focused on improving life quality by going back to basics. Basics are about humans, nature and time management, three ingredients that we learnt being key to better life quality and happiness in life. We discovered this after working for big multinationals companies and then decided to change our lives and go back to basics. Schools today are still too concentrated on trying to teach that happiness is about a career and an economic status.
At our Mas, we host many people just looking for a house in the countryside to escape the Parisian rush. Some of the same people likely own a 500,000 EUR house of 60m² in Paris and spend two hours a day in the Metro waiting for the next weekend to escape the Parisian life. Many will maybe one day realise that this may not be their happiness.
Our society is constantly changing and life in the countryside enjoying nature with a glass of wine looks much more interesting than a chaotic city life to us. Restoring and running a property of 1000 m² and 63 hectares requires a lot of work but we manage our own time as we like. There is no rush, we are surrounded by nature, we see the seasons changing and we get to spend time together as a couple and with the family.
We work more but with no real effort! We live a slow life and we love sharing it with our guests over a beautiful sunset and sipping wine.”
Follow @le_mas_blanc_uzes on Instagram and visit their website for more info about your authentic stay in Provence!
