4-Bed French Country House with Pool & Bread Oven in Charente — Holiday Home Near Angoulême



Poitou-Charentes, Charente, Anais, France, Anais (France)
4 Bedrooms · 1 Bathrooms · 138m² Floor area
€189,000
House
No parking
4 Bedrooms
1 Bathrooms
138m²
Garden
Pool
Not furnished
Description
Sunday morning in Anais moves slowly. The kind of slowly you forget exists until you're standing in a French kitchen at 8am, coffee in hand, watching light creep across a garden that actually has room to breathe. That's the rhythm this four-bedroom Charente house runs on — and once you feel it, city life starts to look a little absurd.
Built in the 1970s on a full basement, this solid family home in the Poitou-Charentes region sits in good condition and carries the kind of practical bones that make a second home genuinely liveable from day one. No romantic ruin-restoration headaches here. The ground floor opens into a kitchen, dining room, veranda, a corridor connecting to the basement and upper level, a toilet, a dressing room, a first bedroom, and a master suite with its own shower room. Upstairs, you'll find a second bedroom, a bathroom, a dedicated office — useful for those who can't fully unplug even on holiday — and a landing corridor linking it all together. Four bedrooms total, spread across a generous 138 square metres of interior space.
The wood-burning insert in the main living area earns its keep the moment October arrives in Charente. Double glazing keeps things quiet and comfortable year-round, and the septic tank sanitation system is already in place — a detail international buyers often overlook until the paperwork stage. The outbuilding is one of those genuinely rare finds: it houses a traditional bread oven. Not a decorative one. A working bread oven waiting to be fired up for weekend baking sessions or the kind of long, smoky dinner parties that only happen in French countryside.
Then there's the covered swimming pool, enclosed under a dome structure — currently in need of restoration to bring it back to working order. Think of it less as a problem and more as a project with a very clear payoff. Once restored, you have a private, season-extended pool that can be used from April through to November, long after the outdoor pools of Provence have gone cold. That's a meaningful upgrade for rental appeal and personal enjoyment alike.
Charente itself doesn't get the same tourist-brochure attention as Provence or the Dordogne, and locals will tell you that's precisely the point. This is the France that French people actually retire to. The pace is unhurried, the markets are genuine rather than curated, and property prices still make sense. The weekly market in nearby Ruffec fills up with charcuterie from the Périgord border, Charentais melons in July, and local walnuts come September. Angoulême, about 25 minutes by car, is a proper city with serious cultural infrastructure — the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée every January draws comic art lovers from across Europe and transforms the city into something genuinely electric. The city's old town sits on a promontory above the Charente river, its ramparts offering views across the valley that stop most people mid-sentence.
The Charente river itself is worth the move. Canoe hire from Cognac downstream takes you past château-dotted riverbanks at a pace that makes GPS irrelevant. Cognac is under an hour by car — yes, that Cognac — and the Hennessy and Rémy Martin house tours are the kind of afternoon that turns into an accidental evening. The region's pineau des Charentes, a fortified wine made from grape juice and Cognac, is the local aperitif of choice, and once you've had it chilled on a garden terrace in late June, nothing else quite competes.
For road connectivity, the property's access to the N10 national route is a genuine daily-life advantage. Poitiers sits about 75 minutes north, Bordeaux roughly 1 hour 45 minutes southwest — close enough for a day trip to the Médoc wine country or the Atlantic coast around Arcachon. The real game-changer for international buyers, though, is Angoulême's TGV station. Paris Montparnasse in 1 hour 30 minutes. That's faster than many suburban commutes in London or Paris itself. Fly into Charles de Gaulle, take the TGV, and you're at your Charente door before dark.
The Charente climate runs warm and relatively dry from May through September, with a continental edge that keeps summers from getting coastal-humid. Winters are mild by northern European standards — genuinely cold enough for the wood insert to feel earned, rarely cold enough to cause problems. Snow is occasional and brief.
For buyers exploring investment potential, the French vacation rental market in this corridor between Bordeaux and Poitiers has been quietly strengthening. Properties with pools in good condition and multiple bedrooms consistently attract cycling tourism (the Via Turonensis pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela passes through the region), summer families, and long-stay remote workers. Once the dome pool is restored, this property shifts meaningfully in rental appeal.
A note for international purchasers: this property is being sold via an interactive auction process beginning June 18, 2026. The opening bid sits at €173,800 inclusive of agency fees, with bid increments of €4,500. The listed price of €189,000 represents a ceiling estimate rather than a fixed sale price — meaning there's genuine potential to acquire at a lower figure. French property auctions require working with a notaire, and Homestra can connect you with English-speaking legal professionals experienced in guiding non-resident buyers through the process cleanly.
Key features at a glance:
- 4 bedrooms across ground and first floor, 138 sqm of living space
- Master suite with shower room on the ground floor — ideal for guests or reduced-mobility access
- Covered dome swimming pool on the property, ready for restoration
- Traditional stone outbuilding with a functioning bread oven
- Wood-burning insert for cosy autumn and winter stays
- Double glazing throughout, septic tank sanitation in place
- Full basement offering significant storage or conversion potential
- Veranda connecting indoor and outdoor living
- Dedicated first-floor office space
- 25 minutes to Angoulême TGV station (Paris in 1h30)
- Quick N10 access: Poitiers ~75 min, Bordeaux ~1h45
- Good condition — move-in ready as a second home from day one
- Auction process from June 18, 2026 with opening bid of €173,800 incl. fees
- Strong rural rental appeal for cycling tourism and summer families
- Authentic Charente village setting — 30 minutes from Cognac
If you've been watching the French property market and waiting for the combination of real value, genuine lifestyle, and practical connectivity, this is a strong argument to stop waiting. Get in touch with the Homestra team today to request the full auction dossier, arrange a viewing before the June 2026 opening date, and get connected with our English-speaking notaire contacts in the Charente region.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 4
- Size
- 138m²
- Price per m²
- €1,370
- Garden size
- 1442m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- Yes
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 1
- Has swimming pool
- Yes
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
Images






Sign up to access location details



































