6-Bed Architect-Redesigned House with Guest Cottage & Pool near Cordes-sur-Ciel



Midi-Pyrénées, Tarn, Cordes-sur-Ciel, France, Virac (France)
6 Bedrooms · 6 Bathrooms · 0m² Floor area
€595,000
House
No parking
6 Bedrooms
6 Bathrooms
0m²
Garden
Pool
Not furnished
Description
Late afternoon in July, the kitchen terrace goes golden. The vine curling overhead filters the light into something soft, and you can smell the lavender baking on the hillside slopes below. A glass of Gaillac white — picked up that morning from the Domaine de Labarthe cooperative just down the D922 — sits on the stone table. The pool, fourteen metres of saltwater shimmering in the western sun, catches the last heat of the day. This isn't a fantasy. This is an ordinary Tuesday at this quietly extraordinary property in Virac, Tarn.
Virac sits in one of the most quietly coveted corners of the Midi-Pyrénées, tucked between the medieval hilltop village of Cordes-sur-Ciel — just ten minutes up the road — and the UNESCO-listed cathedral city of Albi, about fifteen minutes southeast. The French tend to keep places like this to themselves. Rolling countryside of vines, sunflowers, and walnut groves; almost no through traffic; the kind of silence at night where you can hear owls. This is Tarn at its most elemental.
The property itself is a considered composition of two distinct living spaces set on roughly 1.5 hectares of mixed grounds — wooded pockets giving way to open lawns, the land folding gently around the house on a west-facing hillside. A private driveway leads you in, and that sense of arrival — of crossing a threshold into your own world — never quite gets old.
The main house runs to 205 square metres, having been rethought by an architect in 2002. The result is a home that works as a home should: a generous 54-square-metre living room anchors the ground floor, with a wood-burning fireplace that earns its keep every winter and an open-plan kitchen that makes cooking feel like part of the entertainment rather than a retreat from it. The vine-covered pergola terrace off the kitchen is the kind of space that becomes non-negotiable within about forty-eight hours. Morning coffee, long lunches, evening aperitifs — it does all of it, shaded and unhurried.
Downstairs there's also a ground-floor bedroom with its own en-suite shower room and WC — ideal for guests who'd rather not manage stairs, or as a private office away from the main flow of the house. An entrance hall, separate WC, utility room, and pantry complete the practical ground-floor picture. Upstairs, three further bedrooms each have their own bathroom or shower room with WC, and each opens onto a terrace looking down over the garden and pool. The views from up there, especially at dusk when the sky over the Tarn valley goes coral, are the kind that stop conversations mid-sentence.
The independent guest cottage is a real differentiator here — not a studio annexe or a converted barn corner, but a proper two-bedroom self-contained home with its own sitting room and open fireplace, a kitchen-dining space, and a terrace with open views across the countryside. Two bedrooms upstairs, each with shower room, make it genuinely comfortable for extended family, close friends, or — and this is worth considering — paying guests during the high season. Cordes-sur-Ciel pulls serious visitor numbers between June and September, and quality accommodation in the surrounding countryside is never surplus to demand.
The practical infrastructure is solid. Double-glazed wooden windows throughout, gas central heating fed by an above-ground tank, a large 60-square-metre garage connecting directly to the utility room — useful for those longer stays when you accumulate the bikes, the kayaking kit, the market bags. The saltwater pool at 14 by 7 metres is a proper swimming pool, not a plunge pool gesture. It sits within the landscaped garden with the kind of ease that suggests it was always supposed to be there.
Daily life here has a genuinely good rhythm. Saturday mornings, the market at Cordes-sur-Ciel spreads through the medieval bastide streets — charcuterie from the Aveyron, fresh goat's cheese, wild mushrooms in autumn, strawberries from the valley in May. The Fête Médiévale in late May and early June transforms the village into something from another century, with jousting, costumed processions, and wood-fire cooking filling the Grand-Rue. Albi — properly magnificent, and worth every minute of the fifteen-minute drive — has the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, the fortified Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile, and a restaurant scene that punches well above what you'd expect from a mid-sized southern French city. La Berbie garden above the Tarn river is free, beautifully kept, and the kind of place you wander into for twenty minutes and emerge from ninety minutes later.
Outdoor options spread in every direction. The Gorges du Viaur are an hour northeast. Lac de Pareloup — for sailing, windsurfing, and long summer swims — is under ninety minutes. The Canal du Midi and its famous cycling route along the towpath is reachable in under an hour. And then there's the Pyrenees themselves: the ski resorts of Peyragudes and Saint-Lary Soulan sit roughly two and a half hours south, close enough for a long weekend when the snowpack is right in January and February.
For international buyers, the Tarn department has been consistently attractive for a straightforward reason: value relative to more famous French regions holds up well, while the lifestyle competes with anywhere. The Toulouse-Blagnac international airport — with direct connections to London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, and beyond — is about an hour's drive, making this manageable as a genuine second home rather than just a once-a-year pilgrimage.
The French property purchase process for non-residents is well-established and navigated by notaires who handle international transactions routinely. Ownership as a non-resident is fully legal; annual taxes (taxe foncière and taxe d'habitation as applicable) are predictable and moderate at this price point. The property's condition is described as good — move-in ready, with no evidence of the kind of remedial work that can derail renovation projects.
At 595,000 euros for 325 square metres of total living space across two buildings, with a large pool, nearly four acres of grounds, and this location between Cordes-sur-Ciel and Albi, the arithmetic is straightforward by Midi-Pyrénées standards.
Key features at a glance:
- 6 bedrooms across two independent buildings
- 6 bathrooms / shower rooms, most en-suite
- Architect-redesigned main house of 205 sq m (2002)
- Independent 2-bedroom guest cottage with separate terrace and open countryside views
- Total living area approximately 325 sq m
- Saltwater swimming pool 14m x 7m in landscaped garden
- 1.5 hectares of grounds, mixed woodland and lawn
- Vine-covered pergola terrace off main kitchen
- West-facing aspect with afternoon and evening sun
- Large 60 sq m garage with direct utility room access
- Wood-burning fireplace in main house, open fireplace in cottage
- Double-glazed wooden windows, gas-fired central heating
- 10 minutes to Cordes-sur-Ciel, 15 minutes to Albi
- 1 hour from Toulouse-Blagnac International Airport
- Strong rental income potential from cottage during peak season
This is the kind of property that doesn't stay on the market long in this part of France — not because of hype, but because buyers who see it in person tend to stop looking. Reach out through Homestra today to arrange a viewing and get the full documentation pack, including floor plans, cadastral survey, and diagnostic reports. The terrace will be warm when you arrive.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 6
- Size
- 0m²
- Price per m²
- €∞
- Garden size
- 0m²
- Has Garden
- Yes
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 6
- Has swimming pool
- Yes
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
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