Something Special on Belle Ile

 

"A lovely, shimmering story... 
The French House moves to a soulful, very funny rhythm all its own." -Meryl Streep (her comments as recorded on the cover of the book)

As you may recall from my last post, I ordered three special books that all have to do with France in some way or the other. The books arrived last weekend and I have finished the first one, The French House, by Don Wallace of New York City. What a gem I found in this little memoir! This is the story of how a young couple, Don and Mindy Wallace, made their dream come true, even when everyone else said they were crazy. Their desire was to buy a very old row house in a small town on an island off the coast of Brittany on an island they call Belle Ile ("Beautiful Island"). They had finished their formal education when they bought the house but they didn't have much money. They were living in a small NY City apartment at the time, and they were living on a sparse income. Mindy finished her law degree but did not "set up shop" as an attorney, and they began their trips to their beautiful island.

The house in Kerkordardoue was in shambles, and it only had two bedrooms. It basically was nothing more than a pile of rubble, but they bought it anyway. They paid their contractor a little at a time until, after eight long years, the house was livable. Eventually they spent almost every summer there in France, far away from the city living of NY or Paris. I must comment here that having an entire summer off of work is something that most Americans can't imagine, but the Europeans are accustomed to having a lot more vacation time than us each year. Every year when the Wallaces visited their house they got a little closer to their dream of having a good space to live every summer. But when they first bought the house, it didn't even have a working toilet, and going upstairs was "at your own risk." And, of course, they dealt with many setbacks as they had the house renovated, and they had to get used to the slower pace of life and the frustrations of getting workers to actually show up to do the work that was needed. There were codes about what they could and could not do to the outside of their house, and they often found the rules to be nonsensical. Even planting a rose bush was off-limits, but they did it anyway. They had no yard of their own, so planting a small garden was out of the question. One day they saw tracks leading to their dead rose and became very upset because they just knew that someone had run over their beloved plant because it didn't "meet the code." Although renovating the house was very frustrating at times, they stuck with it and made their dream come true.

One of the fun things about this book is that Wallace talks a lot about the 2,000 people who live in Kerkodardoue. He and Mindy enjoyed meeting people such as Gwened Guedel, Denis LeReveur, Suzanne, and many others who made the town colorful. Interestingly, a lot of psychiatrists lived on the island, some of which were part time residents. They found this to be amusing but soon befriended some of these psychiatrists. And why shouldn't these people be on the island anyway? Psychiatrists need a break from it all too.

Very few of us can do what the Wallaces did. When the book was published in 2014, the couple had owned the house for about 20 years. They sacrificed a lot to make their fantasy come true, but they made wonderful memories along the way with their son, Rory. The great food, the body surfing, the parties with their island friends, and the peaceful lifestyle on Belle Ile made it all worthwhile for this family.

Have you ever dreamed about having a place like this? I do dream about traveling, because that's my favorite thing to do, but if I could choose a place to have a simple vacation house it would be in Blue Ridge Mountains here in North Carolina - nothing fancy, just a simple house where we can retreat to a peaceful setting. And doing some hiking and boating would be pretty neat too.

I'm off to Kentucky tomorrow...have a great week.

-Melissa Hill
Book Blogger
www.onegoodbookblog.blogspot.com