Manoir Serenitas

Luxury Manoir
La Foret Des Landes De Gasgogne
Casteljaloux S.W France.

General Features

- Tennis Court

- Sleeps 18
- Full C. Heating
- 9 En-suite Bedrooms
- Large games Room
- 2 Bathrooms 8 Showers 11 Toilets
- 8.5 acres Garden-Meadow & Woods
- Large Heated Pool
- Selection of 300 btl Chateaux Wine
- Pétanque
- Piano
- Period/Antique Furnishings Throughout


Manoir Serenitas.... When purchased , was a total ruin with all the outbuildings in the same state,it was decided that a large part of the house had to be taken down and rebuilt, for this reason we have been able to offer a house with lots of character and charm, also incorporating all modern comforts. The building work took two years to complete and everything has been done to a high standard.

Property Entrance
Two large electric gates open onto the tree lined chemin that leads to the house, at night when the gates open the trees will be illuminated, the drive take you to the roundabout in front of the main entrance doors. To the right of the house partly in the woods is a covered area with parking for five cars.

House Entrance
Two large mahogany doors open onto a very large main lounge of 95 m2, it's heavily timbered with beams from the old house and others from a 18c Chateaux in the Medoc.
This room despite its size is very cosy, furnished with period and Antique furniture, many sofas and a huge open stone fireplace at the far end. Two rooms lead off the main lounge, both entranced by double pairs of magnificent period oak framed stained glass doors.

Dining Room
This is a lovely room, decorated in warm reds, with an area of 37.2 m2 Large dining table for eighteen people, again very well furnished. This room has two double pairs of doors that open directly onto the garden and overlooks the pool.

Second Lounge
This smaller lounge is more intimate ( 22.2 m2 ), with sofas, rugs, t.v, dvd, and double doors leading out to the garden and pool, following through from this room it leads to the......................

Games Room
This room is very charming and fully equipped with ; table tennis – pool table – dart board – flip football – exercise machines and its own toilet, heavily timbered and painted in Provencal colours.
Doors lead onto the main garden and pool area, windows overlook the Tennis court and the woods to the rear of the house, another door opens near the car parking, and main exit doors at the far end lead onto the covered Arbri...............

Covered Arbri
This large covered outside dining area of 89m2 is a wonderful addition to the house It's arranged with two large tables seating 18 persons, easy chairs, and a built in BBQ at the far end It's very secluded, peaceful and relaxing place with the combination of sofa chairs and the view. A path leads from the Arbri directly to the pool, which is only a matter of metres away. To the rear are the woods, and tennis court.

Kitchen
Very spacious and sectioned into two rooms, the main part of the kitchen is 27.6 m2 fully equipped and we hope that we have supplied everything that you could reasonably want. The second section 16.18 m2 is more useful for food preparation and storage of items purchased. Main equipment installed inc;
Large Cooker - 2 Fridges - 2 Washing m/c - 2 Dishwashers - 2 Micro-waves

Bedrooms
All rooms are en-suite, eight bedrooms are upstairs with the ninth downstairs accessed via the smaller kitchen, this bedroom opens directly onto the garden, the bathroom has both a bath and a shower.
The upstairs rooms all lead off a wide hallway, the one to the left with a private balcony also has a bath, all the others off the hallway to the right have showers. All these rooms have nice views either over the garden, pool, or the woods that surround the whole property.

Garden
Manoir Serenitas sits in 8.5 acres of land, all surrounded by pine woods, these woods extend as far as Arcachon and Biscarrosse to the west and Biarritz to the south west. The entrance is tree lined with two meadow fields planted out with pine and poplar to the left and right, nearer to the house to the rear and to the side are some two acres of oak woods.
Around the house the garden is more formal, mainly laid to lawn with flower beds, coming to the pool area this part has been planted out with a large array of bushes, flowers, and palm trees, and a large grassed area for garden games.
The whole 8.5 acres is fenced, fronting onto the road we have planted 280 trees to create an attractive screen. We only have two houses visible to us when standing in the garden, and from the house they are far enough away, all the garden is very private and not overlooked in any way. An automatic watering system is installed to water most of the plants during the night.

Pool
The pool is large being 12 x 9 x 6 mtr of surface area, heated and floodlit at night, a protection system is in place in the form of an alarm. We have installed the latest salt filtration system with electronic feed to balance the Ph in the water, the water is not salty like the sea, it's much nicer to swim in and will not leave that chlorine feel or sting your eyes. The first section of the pool some 3mtr x 2 mtr is suitable for very young children to play and splash around in, it then drops to a slightly deeper level for about 1.5 mtr before it slopes off to 1.4 mt to the rest of the pool, therefore at no point is the pool more than 1.4 mtr deep
Around the pool are a number of very comfortable sun loungers, and fixed parasols. In a direct line with the covered Arbri it is well situated so that children can be supervised.

Tennis Court
This is situated to the rear of the house partly in the woods, very well positioned and shaded by the oak trees. The court is fully fenced and maintained.

Generally
We have tried to give you a feel for the house in the brief details above and over, it's easy to go on and fill the pages with reams of detail, but we feel that this can cause confusion as to what is really there, and what the house is like.
Several photographs are viewable on the present page, in the downloadable brochure or via the post in our postal brochure (which are both the same in all forms). You may also like to try out the "360° Virtual Tour" which is accessible through the menu at the top of this page. From these images we hope that you will have an even better idea of how we have presented the house.

To the House
The turning off the road that runs to the nearest village of Fargues-sur-Ourbise is a small
road / track that runs through the Brume Woods, this is a very peaceful location, the end of the road is a cul-de-sac, there are only three other houses that use this road, so there is no through traffic and often you will see only one maybe two cars a day use the road. There are many tracks through the
woods for walking, and the Village is only 1.5 km away.

House Plan
We have included a plan of the house with the position of all the rooms, marking those with showers or baths, hopefully this will assist with larger parties who wish to select rooms before arrival.

Location
Manoir Serenitas is situated just outside the small village of Fargues-sur-Ourbise, it has the usual small shops that one can purchase most items, for larger shopping Casteljaloux is only 8 mins away from here. There is a full range of shops, and several restaurants, market days two days a week. Casteljaloux boasts a wonderful ' Bains ' if you feel like having massages to mud baths look up their web-site on,www.casteljaloux.com the entrance fee is very modest at around 18€.
Just on the edge of the town is a golf course, very large lake with ; sandy beach-fishing-swimming-
restaurant on the jetty-huge childrens slide, and walks through pine forests.
A riding school is nearly opposite the lake where one can hire horses or take lessons.
Being in the countryside it all looks so peaceful with nothing going on, but there is if you want to do things, Marmande about 20 mins away has another golf course and an airport if someone wishes to take flying lesson or just go for a flight around the countryside or take a glider up for an hour. This much larger town holds many festivals and music evenings throughout the summer, at the bottom of the page we have included several web-sites of the local area, which will give you a much better idea of what's going on and the many places to visit.

Although there are many very old peaceful quaint villages around, Nerac is only 15 mins away - this is a village steeped in Mediaeval History and is a must for a visit, boat trips on the river winding through beautiful countryside make it a memorable day out.

Casteljaloux is on the edge of the La Foret Des Landes De Gascogne. These forests go all the way to the coast and the drive through them to either Arcachon or other places such as Biscarrosse is a delight, keep off the main roads, take the ones that wind through these lovely woods and you will be enchanted with the old villages; some seem never to have changed since they were built.
From the house depending which road you take, the coast is about 90mins away.
Arcachon is a very elegant town from the 1920s, with a huge enclosed bay, and sandy beaches, further along is Pyla with its very famous Dunes and then along to Biscarrosse with Europe's largest inland fresh water lake.
A short drive away is the Médoc/Bordeaux area with 240 Chateaux including all the famous names “ Mouton-Rothchild” - Chateaux Margaux and Chateau Latour.

Many of these old villages seem to be untouched by time, wonderful old Churches, timeless Chateaux, vast areas of pine woods, the weather is sub-tropical, with summers sometimes lasting from late March to October, although we cannot guarantee it ! The climate in the region of France is on a par with Nice – Provence and the Sud West Coast.

Although this is a very rural area, you do not have to travel far to find a variety of activities throughout the summer. For those feeling active one village or another will always have some outside evening entertainment, the streets are closed off, tables laid out, music till late – eat al fresco and absorb the atmosphere.
Classic Music festivals are held in the various Abbeys and Churches, these can be very spectacular events performed by well known artists and they run throughout the summer, Monsegur has an International Jazz festival every year in June.

Most towns have their own wonderful Market days, a delight to behold, all the fresh produce you could ever want, free range eggs, local “fois gras” and the smell of home grown vegetables.

Do have a look at these web-sites
www.casteljaloux.com
www.albret-tourisme.com
www.mairie-marmande.fr