Our story
We are Limor and Romain. We live with our three children just a few steps from Le Clos du Haut, in the farm’s former cider press.
We have lived in Normandy for almost ten years and feel deeply connected to Pays d’Auge — its landscapes, its houses and its gentle country rhythm.
We created Le Clos du Haut as the kind of house we would love to discover while travelling: a place with history, character and beautiful things, without chasing perfection. It was never conceived as a hotel project. We approached it as we do our own home, collecting, transforming and allowing the house to evolve little by little.
The story of a Normandy farmhouse
Le Clos du Haut was once part of a nineteenth-century Normandy farm that remained in the same family for four generations. Like many farms in Pays d’Auge, it was largely self-sufficient. The cottage was both the farmers’ home and a working space where, among other things, milk was processed.
When we discovered the property, we wanted to preserve it and bring it back to life without erasing its history. Old bricks, fireplaces, half-timbering and the original proportions still bear witness to its rural Normandy past.
The renovation
It took almost four years to renovate the house completely. What began as a relatively conventional renovation soon became a project on an entirely different scale. Time had taken its toll on the foundations, requiring much of the structure to be rebuilt while preserving the soul of the house wherever possible.
For all those years, our weekends revolved around the building work. Alongside a handful of local craftspeople, and with invaluable help from family and friends, we completed much of it ourselves. Romain and his father Gilles devoted hundreds of hours to the project, bringing patience, ingenuity and a wealth of practical skill.
Throughout the restoration, we chose high-quality, natural and durable materials that respected the historic building and local traditions: oak, lime and hemp, natural stone and reclaimed bricks.
The interiors evolved alongside the renovation, very instinctively, combining vintage furniture and collected objects, family pieces and more contemporary elements. Other influences we love gradually joined the Normandy materials, from Mediterranean zellige tiles to wallpapers and colours inspired by English country houses.
Le Clos du Haut in pictures
