The house before Richard and his team – along with Gordon and Deb – worked their magic on it
not a lot and knew it would be challenging to make the appointments and to be sure we had everything all lined up.” Gordon and Deb didn't
waste any time. “We had an introductory call with Richard and he talked about being able to walk us through the process of buying a property. What had felt complicated became ridiculously simple.” They flew to France in
September 2021 where Richard had arranged for them to visit 10 houses in the Gers area, which he thought would be perfect for them. “We flew into Toulouse, rented a car and every two seconds we’d be saying ‘Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!’ We absolutely fell in love with the area. It was just so beautiful.” The couple’s brief to Richard
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grand designs from afar Americans Gordon and Deb prove distance is no barrier to creating a dream home in France, says Richard Hammond
From the US to Gers – Deb and Gordon in their new place G
ordon and Deb first discovered France in 2011 when they came for a two-week
holiday from the States. They enjoyed that trip so much that they started coming back regularly, initially for two weeks every two years, and then for three weeks every year. Little did they know that
those early adventures would one day lead to owning and renovating a house here! “From time to time we would see million-euro châteaux for sale on Twitter and think ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’, but of course we
didn’t have a million euros! Then one morning we spotted a little apartment for sale and thought, hey, this is something we could actually afford.” Timing also played a crucial
role. As Gordon explains: “The pandemic took away our ability to travel. We had to cancel the trip we had planned for 2020 and it made us think. You start to assess how you want to spend the rest of your time and with the pandemic, nobody knew how long that would be.” Deb laughs as she remembers
those early days when they were doing the househunting
74 FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: July/August 2023
themselves. “We were still in the States at that stage. We had been looking online – especially Gordon. Every morning, looking for houses, hundreds of them. We looked as far as Provence, and all the way up to Dordogne. There were just so many!”
A LUCKY BREAK Things changed when they read about Richard Hammond, founder of French Connections HCB, in French Property News. “He was talking about helping to find a house for somebody. That resonated because we both speak a bit of French but
become a headache instead of something fun.” During their visit, they came
very close to buying a place that was ready to move into. “We saw one apartment that was beautiful. We both really loved it. It was set up as an Airbnb, fully furnished, so it was very easy to imagine being there. We asked the agent if we could buy the furniture and he said yes, at an additional price, so we literally could have walked in there with our suitcases with nothing else to do.” The couple met with Richard prior to leaving the Gers to
frenchentree.com/ living-in-france
had been quite specific. “We wanted services, but not a big city, and we didn’t want to have to worry about a garden or keeping up an outdoor space. Our intention was to do three months here, three months US, three months here, three months back there on the 90/180-day rule, so we didn’t want to have a whole bunch of yard or pool maintenance to worry about, otherwise it would
© RICHARD HAMMOND
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