Le Domaine de la Marcotte

The story starts in 1924, when due to the Revolution and the exile of an old noble family, a little boy arrives into France. He goes to the village of Fleury-en-Bière where he meets a young French girl whom he marries many years later. The young man with a strong personality, going under the name of de Fleury, joins the free French Forces in London next to Générale de Gaulle. After the war, he is named “Compagnon de la Libération”, an extremely rare distinction in those times, all the more so that he was not French. Later he resides several times in Korea, works in Vienna, then in London, Algeria and finally in Paris. In 1962, he and his wife buy la Marcotte which at that time is nothing more than an old farm in ruins. The restoration of the main buildings starts in May of 1962 . It takes three years of work for the La Marcotte to become habitable. The estate includes, henceforth, the main house and a guest house so that everyone could have his own space. The old stable opened in such a way so as to “integrate” the garden in to the room, becomes the main living room. Some small planning alterations continue till 1966 and the building site finally ends completely in 1971 with the building of a swimming pool. Inside, the slightly old fashion charm of la Marcotte is due to the owners taste as collectors and antique lovers. The omnipresent Russian, Asian and Anglo-Saxon influences are the result of a knowledgeable accumulation of travel souvenirs, furniture and objects bought in auction rooms. Amongst the trinkets in this vast collection, one can find a number of swans that Madame particularly loved as well as some decorated eggs inspired from the famous Russian Fabergé eggs. When Pierres d’Histoire takes over the management of la Marcotte in 2017, the House is as it is shown today but for one detail; half the objects have been removed, which goes to show just how full it was! Apart from its refined decoration, it was and is reputed for its huge garden and many editorials where written at the time that you can read in the archives of the library. In love with gardens, the owner reappropriates this greenery; a subtle mix of à la française topiary and à l’anglaise perennial shrubbery. It has very few flowers apart from those on the bushes and some potted plants on the terrace such as pink laurels, geraniums, fuchsias and other plumbagos that contrast with the austere rigorousness of the evergreens. Here, the greenery offers a very rich scale of green colors. There is little seasonal gardening, which has the advantage of allowing a full garden at all seasons. In winter, there is no strip of land empty of seasonal flowers, no dormant perennial but an open clearing and with sufficient perennial bushes planted so as to not appear desolate. And as if a nod is given to the Russian origins of her husband, the owner brings a little bit of Russia to Ile de France by planting an alley of birch, the white birch being par excellence an emblem of Russia. The atmosphere in this charming house seems to be stamped by an alchemy of two lovers mixing together their passions, complicities and tenderness; it is maybe this, too, that makes la Marcotte such an appealing place.