Mas de la Musique

LE PARADOU

At a glance

History
Mas de la Musique is a Provençal farmhouse built in the mid-1700s. It has thick stone walls and served at one time as the home and working place of the village blacksmith who repaired wagons and carriages, which were driven into what is now the music room, a huge room! Three families inhabited it until shortly before the violinist and conductor Alexander (Sasha) Schneider bought it in 1962. Sasha brought tiles from Rousillon for the floors, added heating and indoor plumbing, chose most of the furniture and made many other changes. He spent two or three months a year in the house until 1992. Sasha often gave concerts in the music room for his friends and for the people of the village, with Peter Serkin and other artists. Pablo Casals, Isaac Stern, the Guarneri Quartet, Jaime Laredo, and many other musicians have stayed in the house and rehearsed in the music room. The current owners purchased the house from Sasha in July 1991 and spend about half the year in le Paradou.

The grounds
The property is about half an acre (.18 hectare). In front of the house is a gravel-covered area, above the level of the road, with a round built-in stone table, a well (with water in it, but not enough to be useful), three fig trees, an almond tree and rose bushes. To the side of the house is a small garden with rosemary, lavender and other herbs and flowers. Beyond the garden is an orchard with fifteen apricot, cherry, and pear trees. The orchard is surrounded on two sides by cypress trees and on the third by oleander and laurel. There is a 5 m. x 10 m. swimming pool at the far end of the property, separated from the orchard by a stone wall.

The house
The house has about 3,500 square feet of floor space, consisting of, on the first floor, a newly renovated kitchen, a library (or spare bedroom), a small bathroom, an atelier and an enormous music room (unheated in winter); and on the second floor, of two bedrooms and a large bathroom. The house is light and airy. There are windows in every room and large doors to the garden from every ground floor room. The house is furnished with old French country pieces and a good supply of china, glassware, silverware, cooking utensils, linens and towels.

Generally, you enter by the kitchen, which has a stove, a refrigerator, a sink and two marble-top tables that will seat six to eight. Adjacent to the kitchen is the library, which has a bed used mostly as a couch, a table, chairs, desk and bookcase. Off the library is a large storage closet, which contains a clothes washer and drier. The library leads either to the kitchen or to the atelier and a small bathroom with tiled shower, toilet and sink.

The remainder of the ground floor consists of the music room, a huge room which runs the full length of the house and which has a wood beam ceiling about thirty feet high. This room stays amazingly cool on the hottest July and August days (generally 10 or 15 degrees cooler than it is outdoors), and is wonderful for listening to music (a hi-fi with FM radio, compact disc player, and turntable are in this room, with additional speakers in the kitchen; there is a large collection of long-playing classical records, and a few CDs).

Two staircases lead from the ground floor to the first floor: one from the atelier to the green bedroom and the other from the kitchen to the big bathroom. Taking the kitchen staircase you arrive in the big bathroom, a room large enough to be a bedroom, and which contains a bathtub, sink, toilet, bidet, and painted wood cabinet, and has two windows, one of which looks out over the orchard to the Alpilles mountains.

Adjacent to the big bathroom is the master bedroom, with a queen-sized bed, armoire and 2 chests of drawers. A door leads from the master bedroom to the green bedroom, which has two beds, one a single and the other double, a sink and a bidet. This bedroom has a small closet and a chest of drawers. A staircase leads from this room down to the atelier and its bathroom.

PLEASE NOTE - The many levels of the house make it unsuitable for people with walking difficulties and although it is very large, it is better suited to a couple with children or two couples who know each other well and have travelled together; this comment is made, in particular, because the master bedroom and the green bedroom are adjoining and interconnecting, although the green bedroom can be accessed independently from a staircase close to the downstairs bathroom (which occupants of this room would use).

There are three working fireplaces in the house: in the kitchen, the study, and the green bedroom. The atelier has a wood-burning heater.

There are four telephones: in the kitchen, the library, and both bedrooms; the ones in the kitchen and the library are cordless and will work throughout the house, and as far away as the swimming pool. There is a fax machine in the atelier. There is also a DSL line that can be used with either cable or wi-fi.

The area
The village of le Paradou could be classed as the perfect village in Provence - too small to attract many tourists, but large enough to have the basic conveniences, and within a half hour of Avignon, Arles, Tarascon, les Baux, St. Rémy-de-Provence, Fontvielle and Nîmes, and an hour of Marseille.

There are five bicycles in the house: four new ountain bikes and one older model. Bicycling on the back roads of Provence is fabulous.

For swimming, the pool, completed in 1994, is in operation (unheated) from May 15 to October 15. There is a pool-house for changing or getting out of the sun.

For salt-water swimming, there is a beach at les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, about 50 minutes south of le Paradou. We also recommend that you drive to Pont du Gard and swim in the Gardon River, beneath the incredible first century Roman aqueduct.

There are many wonderful restaurants in the area. Reasonably priced and excellent ones include L'Affenage in Arles, Le Fournil in Maussane, le Bistrot La Petite France in le Paradou, and especially le Bistrot du Paradou (lunch only except in July and August; delicious prix fixe menu - everyone served the same meal, with all the wine you can drink). Hiély Lucullus in Avignon, le Bistrot d’Eygalières, la Régalido in Fontvielle and l'Oustau Baumanière in les Baux are more expensive but among the best restaurants in France.

You will find more information about le Paradou, in French, and some photographs of the village, at the website: http://www.provenceweb.com/f/bouches/paradou/paradou.htm.

Living in Mas de la Musique

The house is looked after by Cornelius, who lives in St.-Rémy-de-Provence and will meet you at the house on your arrival. Cornelius and his partner Willy Dabriou will come every Monday for 2-3 hours to clean the house and are available for extra house if required, for € 15 per hour. Electric current is 50 cycles, 220 volts. The stove, heaters, and water-heaters run on propane gas, stored in a 2,000-liter tank buried under the garden. There are gas radiators in every room except the atelier, the music room, and the bathrooms. Propane-fueled hot water heaters supply hot water to the kitchen, the big bathroom, and green bedroom. The small bathroom downstairs has an electric water heater. The plumbing and cooking facilities of the Mas work very well for a family, but are definitely not up to the standards of a Ritz-Carlton. You should be willing to put up with some complications in making everything work, and occasionally to run out of hot water for showers, temporarily.

There is a small television set with built-in DVD-player. Without an antenna, it gets only one French channel, and that not very clearly. There is also a small library of DVDs, and others can be rented. The set won’t play America-coded DVDs.

Locally there are two English medical doctors, Dr. Jeremy Dawson and Dr. Susan Gudgeon, who live and practice in le Paradou, an excellent dentist in Eyguières, and hospitals in Avignon, Marseille and Arles.

Markets and food shopping
The best source of bread, croissants, brioches and the like is the boulangerie on the main street of le Paradou. You can shop for baked goods, meat and groceries in le Paradou or Maussane. There is also an enormous supermarket, the Géant Casino, in Fourchon, just beyond Arles. The best place to get meat, fish and fresh produce is at the open air markets, mornings:
Monday - Stes.-Maries-de-la-Mer
Tuesday - Tarascon (great for fish)
Wednesday - Arles, St.Rémy-de-Provence
Thursday - Maussane-les-Alpilles, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Friday - Fontvielle, St.-Martin-de-Crau, Stes.-Maries-de-la-Mer
Saturday - Arles (much bigger than on Wednesday), St.Rémy-de-Provence
Sunday - Beaucaire

For larger quantities of produce, cheaper, there is a marché en gros daily in St.-Etienne-du-Grès.

If you fly to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, you can either take the TGV (rapid train, 3 hours) from Terminal 2, to Avignon, or fly to Marseille. In the summer there are also two TGVs daily between Paris and Arles, both at highly inconvenient times. There are also frequent TGVs from the Gare de Lyon in Paris. From Paris-Orly airport, you can fly to Avignon or Nîmes. Or you can fly to Nice. You can get a taxi to le Paradou from Avignon, Nîmes or Marseille, for between $50 and $100.

Rentals are generally from Monday to Monday. Guests are expected to leave the house as they found it. The house is suitable for occupancy by up to two couples, or a total of up to 5 people if at least one is a child. Long distance telephone calls should be made with a credit card.