the mas
Everywhere in the house, the colors, carefully selected objects and natural textiles provide a soft and soothing atmosphere.
The living room
One step from the kitchen or the Rougadou room and you are in the living room.
The thousand nuances of the terracotta floor tiles merge with the colors of the fabrics of the sofas and armchairs. The large fireplace, in the traditional provençal style, is the soul of the house, where family and friends gather after a long walk in the surrounding countryside. The fireplace will light and warm up the living room during the beautiful autumn evenings as, indeed, the Mas de Cinq Sous welcomes you all year round.
Art books, comic books, novels and short stories have been carefully selected and placed on the shelves. Hidden behind the mirror is a large screen on which you will be able to watch a movie from our selection of DVDs or Apple TV.
If you feel too hot or too cold inside, the outside living room is here for you, protected from the sun by the pergola and ideally located between the cypress and the pomegranate tree. Your favorite drink might already have been placed in the old manger to cool you off.
The kitchen –
dining room
Of a very contemporary design, this beautiful kitchen still allows some elements of the past. Here a stone niche, there a carved acanthus leaf coming out of a wall, the spectrolite blends beautifully with the contemporary furniture placed gently on the floor made of Beaucaire cut stone. This is a kitchen to spend time together. This space is meant to be the heart of the Mas. A passage, a meeting point, a place for sharing. Its very high “cathedral” ceilings give it a majestic character. This is how we see life together, as a reassuring cathedral where one can express his or her affection, warmth and love for loved ones. From the upper floor, you will have a view of what is going on. So as not to miss any of these rare moments.
Opening on nature, a large bay window will let the summer beauty in, and you will just need to cross its threshold, a bottle and glasses in hands, to enjoy your bucolic lunches and dinners outside.
the rooms
The bright rooms overlook the 5 hectares of nature surrounding the Mas. Everything has been thought and designed to offer you the maximum comfort of a refined and discrete luxury. Let us mention that the smoothness of the beds is incredible.
Each of the rooms has its own identity, so the choice is yours. If you cannot agree on who gets which room, pick up a few twigs outside and organize a draw. In any event and whichever room you end up in, we promise your nights will be sweet and your days will be peaceful. Waking up in one of the rooms of the Mas, with the birds singing, the cicadas slowly awakening, the breath of the wind in the pine trees is a unique experience that nature will offer you during your stay.
In each bathroom, you will find products that are 100% local, vegetal and provençal. We are mindful of having as little impact as possible on the surrounding nature. Such a privileged setting calls for another way of living and consuming. We wish to limit the use of plastic and the cosmetic products that we use are natural.
WiFi is available throughout the house, as well as in the rooms and on the terrace.
The vegetable garden
You can also enjoy and make useful use of the vegetable garden, which is grown organically and located just next to the Mas. Depending on the season, you will find zucchinis, tomatoes, herbs, peppers, eggplants, ready to be picked up. The simple pleasure of picking up ripe and sun-gorged fruits and vegetables and putting them in your basket. The soft feeling of returning to earth. There will also be a few surprises there.
An enchanting setting
Every single window is a frame revealing the beauty of the site. Each room and overture have been designed so that nature is always in your field of vision. Each bedroom offers a different view. The large bay windows let in the famous Southern enchanting light which keeps captivating the painters. Open one of them and the music of wild grass dancing and singing with the wind, as well as the warm and inebriating odors of the pine forest, wild thymes and rosemary will fill the room and rock you like the back-and-forth motion of a wave on the sand.
From the natural pool located in the middle of the garrigue and at the end of the path cutting lightly through the field, you will have a breathtaking view on the Alpilles mountains. These rocks truly pierce the sky. The Alpilles are waiting for you. And offer themselves to you. So that you can feel alone in the world.
Nature is omnipresent; it invades space and creates living paintings all around the house.
In an enchanting setting, the 5 hectare-grounds surrounding the Mas will be your playground. Follow the small path cutting through the wild grass. Climb up the hills, get lost in the fields, explore the Rougadou stream, stop, observe, take your time. This is your home.
The natural pool
The fun continues.
Allow yourself to follow the path which cuts lightly through the wild grass, attracted by the distance vision of a pontoon, as an invitation to dive deeper and deeper into the South.
The natural pool awaits you away from the house, to cool off when it’s hot or to swim some laps.
Nestled in a nook of the Alpilles, in an alcove in the pine forest, it seems like it has always been here. Discretely laid out in the middle of the provençal flora, this water retention blends into the landscape. It is ideally located, at the edge of the pine grove. Designed like a secret pond with an astonishing view on the Alpilles mountain range. In the shade or under the sun, you will enjoy swimming in a water which has the color of a river, lay down on one of the large pool sides and work on your tan while observing buzzards, kestrels and hawks pierce the electric-blue sky or following the slow and wheezing trajectory of the gliders. Dragonflies will protect you against mosquitoes, if any. A small ecological reserve, the natural pool operates as a nursery for these delicate animals who like to come there and rest.
When you get out of the pool, a few steps will take you to an outside shower. Walk a few more meters and you will find a place entirely furnished for you to watch and enjoy nature. Sofa and armchairs are installed next to a 300 year-old olive tree. You can have lunch on the beautiful wooden table which rests on Beaucaire bar stones. A big wooden box sits there and stirs your curiosity. Inside is an exterior bar and kitchen. Plancha, blender, fridge, this “magic-box”, as we like to call it, contains all that you need. Grab a stool and sit at the bar, facing the expanse of the Alpilles. So many occasions to do nothing or quasi nothing, but always in style. You will then feel the gentleness of Provence beneath the shady pines and might even find yourself wanting to engage in a pétanque game, with absolutely no obligation to finish it.
4 x 4 meter-long sunbaths and deck chairs are at your disposal around the pool. An invitation to laziness.
If these old stones could talk
Our house has a story to tell. It offers a journey through time to those who venture between its walls. For more than 40 years, the Mas de Cinq Sous was the home of Georges Item, the Swiss painter. During the summer of 1948, then aged 21, Georges Item decided to travel to Provence with two friends of his. It was love at first sight. He spent a few days at the youth hostel in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a scruffy farmhouse hidden at the bottom of a small valley in the Alpilles. He loved this place so much that he decided, several years later, to buy it. He renovated it with some friends, added a studio and lived there until his death in 1990. “Here, I am alone. Here, I am free, from all the solitude and all the freedom of the first man on earth”.
The Alpilles theme – the acute lines of the dry mountains tearing up the sky – inspired him for most of his life. Georges Item once said to a friend: “The Alpilles do not let themselves easily be painted because they call for vigorous strokes and sharp contrasts“.
For years, the Mas de Cinq Sous has been a place where writers, poets, artists and musicians met and shared moments and stories.
It is now up to you to come and take the time to write a few pages of your own personal story.
