{"id":290328,"date":"2025-07-25T10:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290328\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T10:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:22:11","slug":"a-500-year-old-house-in-the-south-of-france-filled-with-english-inspired-decoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/290328\/","title":{"rendered":"A 500-year-old house in the South of France, filled with English-inspired decoration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018I always say that it\u2019s an English country<\/a> house in France<\/a>,\u2019 says Utah-based Kyong Millar when describing La Maison de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric<\/a>, her charming holiday home in the south of France. If the English influence seems unexpected for a couple from Salt Lake City, Kyong \u2013 founder of clothing boutique Koo De Ker \u2013 explains that years before buying their holiday home near Uz\u00e8s, she and husband Donnie almost moved to the UK. In preparation, many trips were made to the Cotswolds<\/a>, taking design notes from National Trust houses<\/a> and poring over issues of House & Garden.<\/p>\n

Their transatlantic move fell through, but the couple had already fallen in love with Europe<\/a>, and Kyong in particular had discovered an affinity with traditional English decorating. She references those early lessons in room layout, arranging objects and layering patterns as being pivotal to her vision for La Maison de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric.<\/p>\n

Kyong and Donnie had holidayed in the south of France for a decade before their 2020 \u2018now or never\u2019 purchase. They loved the slow lifestyle, but the houses they rented always felt lacking in design or functionality, so the couple often mooted buying a place of their own. The fairytale villages of the Luberon didn\u2019t appeal. \u2018We wanted to learn to speak French in a working town where people actually live,\u2019 says Kyong. Uz\u00e8s, 40 kilometres west of Avignon, felt like such a community, and so it became the central point of their search.<\/p>\n

La Maison de Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric wasn\u2019t a spontaneous buy \u2013 they\u2019d seen it before \u2013 but in the end, it took a global pandemic to give them the push they needed. \u2018Like everybody, we were having an existential crisis during the first lockdown,\u2019 Kyong explains. \u2018I’m a busybody, but my store was closed, everybody was at home, and then it makes you question, is this my life? Is this it? And so we bought the house.\u2019<\/p>\n

The sale process took a year, but their dream was finally realised in the centre of a sleepy medieval village, a short drive from lavender fields and 15 minutes from some of their favourite caf\u00e9s and antiques shops. The previous owners had modernised the 500-year-old house around 30 years ago, but aesthetically and practically, it still needed a lot of work, and so began four years of renovating. They had a bilingual site manager who lived locally, but during the most pivotal points, they were making the 10,000-mile round-trip from Utah every two months to keep progress on track.<\/p>\n

They had initially planned to renovate the three-storey, four-bedroom<\/a> house in stages, but post-pandemic, their original quotes for work and materials had gone up by 20-30 per cent, and it was only going to get worse. \u2018We realised we had to put all our chips in and do it in one go, but it was so overwhelming and consuming,\u2019 recalls Kyong. \u2018The eight-hour time difference meant I was up at 4am every morning to be available on WhatsApp, because once the tradesmen were on site, if they didn\u2019t have all the information they needed, they\u2019d leave and not come back for another week. I was always tethered to my phone, answering questions,\u2019 Kyong adds. \u2018There were many points where I thought we\u2019d made a mistake and we\u2019d bitten off more than we could chew. I\u2019d think, this is too hard, what are we doing?\u2019 she recollects. \u2018I\u2019d always say that I could handle the elephants, it was the ants that got me. I could deal with the big things, but the minutiae can send you crazy.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018I always say that it\u2019s an English country house in France,\u2019 says Utah-based Kyong Millar when describing La…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[4094,2000,299,97930,36,108157,91010,91011],"class_list":{"0":"post-290328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-country","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european-houses","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-french-houses","14":"tag-traditional-country","15":"tag-traditional-houses"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114913381279285204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}