Early on a July morning, before the heat really settles in, you slide open the kitchen doors and the air comes in carrying wild thyme and something faintly resinous from the garrigue. The Cévennes ridgeline is already crisp against the blue, and on the clearest days Mont Ventoux floats on the horizon like a rumor. This is the view you wake up to. Not a postcard version of it — the actual thing, unobstructed, every single day.
Built in 2008 and sitting on 2,011 square meters of private hillside in Tornac, just four kilometers from Anduze, this four-bedroom villa with a fully independent guesthouse is one of those properties that takes a few minutes to properly understand. The layout is clever: the house is cut into a gentle south-facing slope, which means neighbors exist on one side only, behind a solid dividing wall that makes them irrelevant. Everywhere else, the land falls away or opens up. You're not isolated — you're just free.
The main house runs to 125 square meters on a single level, which matters more than you'd think. No stairs, no interrupted sightlines, no awkward split between levels. The 42-square-meter living room anchors everything around a wood-burning fireplace with a proper stone mantelpiece — the kind of fireplace that justifies the whole room being arranged around it. Two covered terraces, each around 30 square meters, open off either side. One catches the morning sun. The other holds the shade into the afternoon. You figure out quickly which you prefer for coffee and which for wine.
The kitchen is the kind that makes cooking feel like the point of the day rather than an interruption. Twenty-six square meters with a central island, a second fireplace, a big pantry, and sliding doors that push back to connect directly to the terrace. In the Gard, meals drift outside almost involuntarily from May through October. A leg of lamb from the Saturday market in Anduze, some local goat's cheese from the fromagerie on the Rue Nationale, a bottle of Costières de Nîmes from the cave cooperative ten minutes away — the kitchen here is built for that kind of cooking.
The master suite has a dressing room and a bathroom with double sinks, a walk-in shower, and a freestanding bath. The second bedroom has built-in wardrobes and its own en-suite with shower and double sinks. Both are properly generous rooms, not the kind of bedrooms that require apologizing to guests.
Then there's the gîte. Forty-one square meters, fully self-contained, with a living room, kitchenette, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and its own private terrace leading directly to the pool. This is the detail that changes how you think about the whole property. Host family without losing your space. Rent it independently when you're not here — short-term gîte rental in the Cévennes corridor is consistently popular, and properties like this near Anduze can command strong weekly rates during the summer season. The numbers work.
The pool itself — eight by four meters, surrounded by generous sun terracing — sits in the middle of the grounds in a way that feels considered rather than dropped in. Every angle of outdoor space, from the pool deck to the main terrace to the gîte's private corner, has been arranged so that no one looks down on anyone else. Privacy isn't something you have to manage here. It's structural.
Anduze is four kilometers away, and the voie verte — the old railway converted into a flat cycling and walking path — runs right alongside the property. On a bike, you're at the weekly Tuesday market in twenty minutes, picking through stalls of Cévennes honey, local olive oil, and fresh chèvre before the crowds arrive. Anduze itself is worth the trip without any particular agenda: the famous bamboo garden at Prafrance, the little train that climbs into the Cévennes toward Saint-Jean-du-Gard, the Place du Château with its café tables on market day. It's a proper town rather than a tourist stage set, and it has what you actually need — a pharmacy, a good butcher, a bakery that opens at seven.
The Cévennes National Park begins less than ten minutes by car. The Gardon river, cooler than you'd expect in high summer, runs through limestone gorges that serious walkers and casual paddlers share without trouble. Canoeing down from Générargues through the gorge to Collias is something you'd do once and immediately start planning to do again. The GR67 hiking trail cuts through oak and chestnut forest at altitudes where the air changes noticeably. In autumn, the chestnuts come down and the villages up in the park run fêtes around them — the Fête de la Châtaigne in Saint-Jean-du-Gard is the kind of local event that doesn't appear in guidebooks but that you'd mark on the calendar every year.
Nîmes is fifty minutes, which means the Roman arena, the Maison Carrée, and some of the best tapas-inflected bistros in the Languedoc are a reasonable evening out. The Mediterranean coast — Palavas-les-Flots, La Grande-Motte, or the wilder Camargue edge — is about an hour. The A9 motorway from Nîmes puts you on a spine that runs to Montpellier in forty minutes or to Avignon in under an hour. Montpellier airport handles direct flights to London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and a growing list of European cities. Nîmes airport, smaller but closer, adds further options including Ryanair routes to the UK. In practical terms, this is not a remote property. It just feels like one.
The practical spec is solid throughout. Underfloor heating covers the entire main house. Fiber optic internet is connected — important for anyone working remotely or renting to guests who expect it. The energy rating is C, which is notably good for this region and property type. A mechanical ventilation system keeps airflow consistent, and the hot water system is electric. Parking for four cars on private ground means arrival with a full party never becomes a logistical problem.
For international buyers, the Gard remains one of the more accessible entry points into French property ownership. Notary fees and taxes are standard and transparent; a French notaire handles the full purchase process. Non-resident owners can use a local property management company to handle rental bookings, key handover, and maintenance during periods of absence — several operate specifically in the Anduze-Saint-Jean-du-Gard corridor. The property is in good condition and move-in ready, requiring no renovation budget before first use.
Key features at a glance:
- 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom villa (166 m² total) built in 2008 on 2,011 m² of private grounds
- Main house 125 m² on a single level with no shared boundaries on three sides
- 42 m² living room with wood-burning fireplace and panoramic Cévennes views
- 26 m² kitchen with island, second fireplace, pantry, and terrace access
- Master suite with dressing room, double sinks, walk-in shower, and freestanding bath
- Fully independent 41 m² guesthouse with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and private terrace
- 8x4 m swimming pool with full-privacy sun terrace
- Two covered outdoor terraces of approximately 30 m² each
- Underfloor heating throughout main house, fiber optic internet, energy rating C
- Parking for four cars on private grounds
- Direct access to the voie verte cycling path — 4 km to Anduze by bike
- Cévennes National Park under 10 minutes by car
- Mediterranean coast approximately one hour's drive
- Nîmes (A9 motorway) 50 minutes; Montpellier airport around 1 hour
- Strong short-term rental potential from the independent guesthouse
Properties at this intersection — move-in ready, modern construction, genuine privacy, rental income potential, and that particular quality of light the Gard delivers — don't tend to sit on the market for long. If you'd like to arrange a visit or get more details on ownership practicalities for international buyers, reach out to the Homestra team today. We'll answer every question and, if you'd like, walk you through the property on a video call before you book flights.
