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Brasil Architecture

Modern architecture

An Archaeological Rehab

Richard and Carole Salmon, who renovated a house in Cahors, France, built a swimming pool to help them survive the merciless heat in the summer.

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

So when he saw the house that was to consume so much of his time and energy in the years to come, he fell hard. “It was an instant coup de foudre,” he said, using the French term for love at first sight. The house was a wreck, but it had been spared the crude renovations that marred so many of the properties he had seen. And he was experienced enough to know that what appeared to be structural damage — a collapsed buttress and dislodged column that had deterred other buyers — was largely cosmeti	An early house on the property dates back at least 400 years and once was lodging for pilgrims en route to Santiago de Compostela, but all that remains of it is a vaulted stone cellar. Most of the buildings still standing were part of a farm built in the 19th century, with a tower that was a dovecote, a large cellar where wine was stored in vast casks and grapes were shoveled in through low window slits, and an expansive attic used for drying tobacco.	The first task the Salmons faced was clearing out decades of accumulated junk, decrepit furniture and layer upon layer of linoleum. They also found antique tools, which they kept; photos taken during the Spanish Civil War, which they returned to the previous owner’s family; and rathole covers made from sardine tins, which they threw out. Eventually, there was a pile of trash out front “as big as the house,” Mr. Salmon said.
Next, they set about removing the concrete that covered nearly every surface, revealing old stonework underneath, which they repointed with traditional lime mortar. Then they moved on to the sheep barn abutting the main house, converting it into a master bedroom, and to another barn, turning it into a sculpture studio for Mr. Salmon. Finally, they shored up the attic, winching back the sagging beams and laying a new oak floor.	Progress was slow, in part because Mr. Salmon was determined to save as much of the original detail as possible: the old wooden window frames; the plaster walls, complete with their centuries-old stains; the antique wooden floors, which were warped and buckled, he said, “like waves in the sea”; even the flaking paint on an old back door.	It took Mrs. Salmon a while to see the virtue in this. At one point, she would have gladly traded authenticity for a little extra comfort, she said, but now she loves the old stone house as much as her husband does. “It was like the house had been encased in an iron lung,” she said. “But little by little, we could feel it coming alive again. We could feel it breathe.”