An early-20th-century residence with a terrace, garage, pool and large tree-dotted garden, secretly tucked away in central Avignon, south-east France. The townhouse was built between 1920 and 1930 on a plot of over 600m², right in the city centre, between a grand boulevard lined with plane trees and a quiet street running alongside Avignon’s Carmelite convent. The edifice reflected the splendour of its first owner, a farmer from the town of Barbentane, Joseph Chaix, who founded a private bank exclusively for his fellow farmers, who had been neglected by the banking system of their time. The bank still exists today, as does its founder’s residence. The northern elevation, facing the boulevard and its two-hundred-year-old plane trees, has an austere appearance, with no ornamentation other than an antique-style frieze and supports for Müller ceramic medallions, which need to be restored. The few steps leading up to the entrance door show that the house is raised above the level of the boulevard, a measure made necessary by the fact that this part of Avignon was once prone to flooding, long before major works to regulate the flow of the River Rhône were carried out further upstream. In the entrance hall, another, larger flight of steps raises the ground floor of the house – its lounge, dining room and spacious kitchen – by a good metre and a half, leading out onto a terrace overlooking the garden level. From a layout perspective, access to the latter level is only possible once you have gone down, on one side (the garden side), all the steps you have gone up on the other (the street side). The property offers a floor area of around 380m². It has three levels on the street side and four on the garden side. The base of the terrace and the ground floor, built to level out the home, serves as a separate dwelling. The garden covers around 500m². It is densely wooded, featuring two plane trees now over a century old, as well as olive trees, oleanders and other endemic species, forming a natural screen that provides complete privacy. At its eastern end, an octagonal swimming pool anchors the space. Raised above ground level, it runs alongside the spacious 90m² garage, which leads out onto the road where the Carmelite convent lies. This garage offers the possibility of a vertical extension with the same floor area. From here, the house appears almost surreal through the foliage of its garden, which seems to belong to another era.

Private mansionAvignon (84)
Price :
$2,201,400
($5,793 / m²)
Surface380 m²bedrooms5 bathrooms3 land639 m²

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