Amar & I met at Heriot Watt university in Edinburgh way back in 1981. Amar went on to become a lecturer in economics and I went down the path of retail management. 15 years on we decided to work for ourselves & we left city life to build up a small hotel & restaurant in the Scottish Borders.
We thoroughly enjoyed every minute ( well, most of them anyway!) but 10 years, much renovation, several awards, 4 stars & 2 children later we knew we needed to move on.
And so we found Les Crouquets – 7 holiday cottages in the Dordogne -which is now our home and livelihood.
We have now also recently expanded our lttle empire and Les Crouquets now has a little sister, La Tour de Genèbre – a stunning stone built villa with a private pool which will be available to rent for the 2015 season!
Exactly how we came to arrive in this wonderful corner of rural France after spending a whole year searching is another story altogether.
Suffice to say that for us living here is a breath of fresh air – we are truly at home here and we’re sure you will be too!
We look forward to sharing our experiences with you in the posts to come and hope to see you here some day!
Elena, Amar Emma & Alistair
Your website and gite site look lovely! We recently spent 3 weeks in the Languedoc region and ‘need’ to come back. We’ve been sweltering in 38 to 48 deg C in Arizona USA. I could do with a dip in your pool right now.
Thank you Carol! I’ve just had a quick peek at your blog – wonderful!! I doubt I could have been as brave ( or as crazy! ) as you but what a fantastic experience it all must be -just moving from Scotland to France was a big leap for me but it’s all very tame in comparison to your adventures – I’ll be looking forward to reading more!!
Hi Stephanie,
I’m Ken Ellison, original owner of Le Crouquet. I was in UK when the pool was blasted out. Were you the family in the motor Home staying in the farmhouse? If so I remember meeting you one time when I came down to check progress – I think Alan and Karen were there at the time.
We have visited Elena, and yes they have made a wonderful job of the place. Love to hear from you
We love how Les Crouquets is looking now. We were involved in the original conversion from a working farm into Gites and have some interesting stories – like when the french mason decided to use weed killer and sugar to try and blast the hole for the swimming pool. (transported all the way to the site ready mixed in buckets in his boot!) He drilled holes and was hammering the mix down with wooden poles. He used too much and the explosion sent rocks flying in every direction even hitting the farm roof – where I was painting walls at the time!
It really looks a beautiful and heavenly place. Just stunning. I would love my family to come back and see it and show you some photos.
Hi Stephanie!
I’ve only just come across your comment – sorry for taking so long to reply…
It’s really good to hear from you – I’m always fascinated by old stories from the past and how things evolved over the years. We would be delighted to find out more about Les Crouquets! You are more than welcome to visit whenever you can and of course we would love to see some photos of how it all started out!!