For 20 years, the old stone house on the hill stood empty, the forest surrounding it creeping ever closer. The house’s elderly owner had died, leaving it to relatives who were in no hurry to sell and had priced it accordingly.

That turned out to be a stroke of luck for Richard Salmon, a British-born art restorer who arrived at exactly the right moment: shortly after the price was cut by the family when one of its members fell ill. Locals had been trying to force down the price for years and were amazed that an outsider succeeded where they had failed. “But it was just fantastic timing really,” said Mr. Salmon, who bought the property in 2000 for $200,000. “I was lucky.”

Mr. Salmon, who is now 58, was seeking a renovation project, something as different as possible from the Brooklyn home he shares with his wife, Carole, 52. (Their children, Jules, 19, and Lucie, 17, live in France, where they go to school.) He had a lifelong love of old French houses that began as a child during vacations spent touring ruined castles in this part of southwestern France and continued in college, where he studied medieval sculpture