Finca Serena was built in 2004 near the site of an old farmhouse, some of the ruins of which can still be seen in the grounds today.   We bought the property in 2016 in anticipation of returning to the UK after a long posting to Turkey where we had got used to wonderful long warm summers: neither of us was enthusiastic about the prospect of returning to the UK without a place we could retreat to where we knew the weather would be good.  One of us is half French so we naturally searched around France for the ideal place, but we could neither find what we wanted nor were we convinced of the reliability of the weather there.  Then we remembered that we had had many wonderful holidays renting a house in the village of Gaucin and decided to look around the countryside in this area.  When we first saw the house we both fell in love with it – it ticked all the boxes for us and clearly had a lot of potential.   Moreover it had the most spectacular views.

We have done quite a lot of work both internally and externally.  In the house itself we have completely remodelled the kitchen/dining area, knocking down a wall to increase the space and allowing the dining table to be in the same room (it used to be down in the sitting room!).    We then replaced the open fire place in the sitting room with a modern woodburner which efficiently heats up the entire house.  We have brought our own art, fabrics and antiques with us and we continually add to the décor.   Much of the art is by local artists, some is French and a few of the prints (especially in the master bedroom) are Ottoman/Turkish.   Most of the fabrics were acquired in Istanbul although the ikats in the sitting room are from Turkmenistan and the large wedding blanket hanging above the TV was made by marsh Arabs of southern Iraq and was a particularly lucky find.