Open House

From Paris to Pasture: La Ferme de Brouage

A Parisian family have transformed a former monastery situated 500 kilometres outside the city into a vegetable farm. Future-orientated agriculture and constant change define this place, which also offers accommodations for guests.

by Barbara Hallmann in October 2026

Changes? La-Grip­perie-Saint-Sym­ph­orien has seen plenty of them over the cen­turies. The village of just under 600 inha­bi­tants is located on the edge of the former Gulf of Sain­tonge, less than an hour south-east of La Rochelle. An area once flood-ed by the sea, the landmass began to develop from 400 AD onwards. The inlet that remained was called “La Brouage”. The area west of La-Grippe-rie-Saint-Symphorien up to the At-lantic is still pure marshland, its clay-laden soil is subject to con­stant swelling and shrinkage.

In the twelfth century, one of the most important Bene­dictine abbeys in France, situated 30 kilo­metres away in Saintes, founded a daughter clois­ter here. It was pro­bably dis­solved – just like its mother house – during the French Revo­lution; since then, the building has served a resi­dential function, most recently as a second home. The out­buil­dings dating back to the eigh­teenth century were orig­inally stables but have stood empty for 150 years.

At the time the family lived in the rather barren 9th Arron­dis­sement – “the stoniest”, as Hanh-Claire describes it.

The family of seven dis­co­vered the four-hectare pro­perty while touring western and sou­thern France in search of their future home. The youngest child was one year old at the time, the oldest ten. The parents, Hanh-Claire and Antoine, were dyed-in-the-wool city dwellers, having grown up in Paris and working in inter­na­tional firms. At the time the family lived in the rather barren 9th Arron­dis­sement – “the stoniest”, as Hanh-Claire describes it. But they wanted to dare to change, to make the world a better place for them­selves and their children. So, they explored France, drove to La Rochelle and from there south to the Cévennes and Mont­pellier. “But this is the region that felt right for us”, recalls Hanh-Claire. “We told our­selves that it would not get as hot here as it does in the south, and that we pro­bably would not expe­rience water shortages here either – which is a very important con­side­ration for a vege­table farm”.

With the purchase suc­cessful, the family left Paris and moved to Cha­rente-Maritime. Hanh-Claire and Antoine attended adult edu­cation courses on organic farming and set about estab­li­shing a fruit and vege­table farm that made sense to them on their four-hectare site: one requiring a lot of manual labour, which eschewed arti­ficial fer­ti­lisers and che­mical pesti­cides, but was still eco­no­mically viable. “Until the phyll­oxera crisis in the 19th century there was viti­culture on the estate, so we were rela­tively con­fident that the soil was good, and that it had been allowed to rest long enough to be free of che­micals”. At first, it was important to prove them­selves to the locals, Hanh-Claire recalls:

“The local resi­dents were reserved but curious. So, we worked hard, removing the over­growth and pre­paring the soil – proving that we were serious”. It must have seemed odd to the village natives that two city dwellers wanted to try their hand at farming in this remote region. “Most of them pro­bably did not expect us to last very long”.

The two did not just have a plan to grow fruit and vege­tables. From the outset, they had the idea of setting up vacation apart­ments in the large out­buil­dings, inspired by Italian and Greek hos­pi­tality models. Antoine empha­sises that they did not invent this concept: “We’ve simply imported it. In these countries, there are working farms that also offer stylish accom­mo­da­tions”. That is rarely found in France. “Either it is a func­tioning farm that also rents out a few poorly fur­nished rooms. Or there are stylish alter­native holiday spaces, where you’ve got at most a few straw bales, two cats, and three rabbits, to give the impression you are on a farm”.

In the twelfth century, one of the most important Bene­dictine abbeys in France, situated 30 kilo­metres away in Saintes, founded a daughter clois­ter here. It was pro­bably dis­solved – just like its mother house – during the French Revo­lution; since then, the building has served a resi­dential function, most recently as a second home. The out­buil­dings dating back to the eigh­teenth century were orig­inally stables but have stood empty for 150 years.

The adjacent buil­dings are perfect for the vacation rental project, as they are solid struc­tures with 50-cen­ti­metre-thick walls. Hanh-Claire and Antoine wanted a modern, mini­malist, yet cosy ambiance – and they pretty quickly had a sense of who could best help them achieve this. They knew the Swedish architect Anki Linde from their time in Paris. Antoine had already worked with her in his role as Mar­keting Director for Dyson France on the con­s­truction of its new French head­quarters. The project wrapped up just before he and his family decided to leave the capital. “Of course, Anki couldn’t come here all the time for the con­s­truction. So, she just did the design, and we took care of the exe­cution and con­s­truction management our­selves”, he explains.

Con­se­quently, while building up the farm business, the couple was also busy com­pleting a total of five holiday apart­ments. The two report that they simply felt like managing the con­s­truction site – espe­cially since they already had some prior expe­rience from their time in Paris. As Antoine ela­bo­rates, “This way we are familiar with ever­y­thing here and can take care of things our­selves when repairs are necessary”.

Every time guests arrive and leave their things, it trans­forms the place and enlivens it in a whole new way.

Since 2020, a total of 36 guests can be accom­mo­dated at the Ferme de Brouage. “It is a very dif­ferent kind of holi­day­making com­pared to else­where”, describes Hanh-Claire. Her husband says the pair gave the architect just one word as a briefing: “Monastic”. This is to say that, despite all the modern com­forts, the appearance of the apart­ments should be very mini­malist. “Every time guests arrive and leave their things, it trans­forms the place and enlivens it in a whole new way”, relates Hanh-Claire.

The idea is that sim­plicity enables guests to dis­cover their own unique ways of relaxing. “You often come out of the hectic city and then it’s good to have some peace and quiet for your eyes”, explains Hanh-Claire. The design con­tri­butes to this objective: apart from the kitchen work sur­faces, which are stainless steel, the apart­ments exclu­sively feature natural mate­rials like stone and wood, clay and hemp.
There is no dis­tracting deco­ration. The fur­niture is mostly second hand – it was important to them both to keep the eco­lo­gical foot­print of the entire project as small as pos­sible.

This pro­ximity to pro­duction actually has an impact on both children and adults alike. It makes people reflect on their own con­sumption.

And so, every week, guests arrive from France and Belgium, from the Net­her­lands and Germany. Again and again you meet the two hosts or their children on the farm or in the fields. You can also meet at one of the evening events; the Ferme de Brouage hosts con­certs, rea­dings, or large dinners at a long trestle table in the green­house. Or you might encounter one of the “Artists in Resi­dence” who regu­larly come to the farm in coope­ration with the regional cul­tural direc­torate to work on their pro­jects for a while. In this way, the Ferme de Brouage has deve­loped into a kind of cul­tural centre in the village.

As one can imagine, Antoine and his wife have little time to rest in their daily lives – not least because they are in a con­stant process of ex­perimenting, learning, and changing. “Vege­table farming was and still is the biggest unknown for both of us”, admits Antoine. It took them seven years to really be satisfied with the results. “But we are doing this out of con­viction, not because it would bring in a lot of money”. To satisfy the requi­re­ments of ambi­tious re­gional chefs, they, along with their team, grow 50 dif­ferent types of fruits and vege­tables, including 25 dif­ferent tomatoes, six types of auber­gines and ten sorts of peppers,along with flowers and herbs. “The pre­re­quisite is always that the re­sult is excellent even without the use of che­mical fer­ti­lisers”, says Antoine. That is why he also relies on low-main­tenance crops like savoy­cabbage, lettuce, bee­troot, and fennel, which are well-adapted to the region’s soil and climate.

The holiday apartment guests also benefit from all the hoeing, weeding,and thinning. The farm’s concept in­cludes that guests can obtain an un­limited supply of fruit, vege­tables, flowers, and herbs from Antoine and Hanh-Claire’s fields, with which they can cook for family or friends. Con­sequently, the kit­chens in the holi-day apart­ments are com­pre­hen­sively equipped, so that it is a real pleas­ure to prepare cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and zuc­chini. That’s exact­ly what makes it special”, observes Antoine. “The vege­table garden is not just here as a display to attract guests. They can harvest the same pro-duce for them­selves that we pack into the crates destined for Michelin-starred restau­rants”.

This creates a special rela­ti­onship between the hosts and their visitors. “Many guests, espe­cially those from Germany and the Net­her­lands, come to us spe­ci­fi­cally because of our vege­table cul­ti­vation”, remarks Antoine. He recounts how a cook from Potsdam, who was there with his family, sud­denly came to him and his employees on the field with a plate in hishand: “He had arranged the dish in­credibly beau­tifully and came to me with it – while I was kne­eling on all fours next to the carrots. But he really wanted me to try it”.

For Antoine and Hanh-Claire, how-ever, the trans­for­mation is far from over. “We have a real passion for making new pro­jects a reality”, he admits. The next ones are already being planned: a hall is to be built in 2026 so that cul­tural events can be less dependent on the weather. And so, the Ferme de Brouage will change a little again.

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Words: Barbara Hallmann

Photos: Antoine Leveque & Friends

This article first appeared in our book Dream in Pro­gress. The book is available to purchase from our shop.