9-Bed Estate with Private Lake & 14 Hectares Near Civray — Vacation Home in Poitou-Charentes



Poitou-Charentes, Vienne, Civray, France, Genouillé (France)
9 Bedrooms · 8 Bathrooms · 540m² Floor area
€550,000
House
No parking
9 Bedrooms
8 Bathrooms
540m²
No garden
Pool
Not furnished
Description
Stand at the edge of the private lake on a July morning and the only sounds are a wood pigeon somewhere in the oak canopy and the soft lap of water against the bank. No road noise. No neighbors. Just 14 hectares of meadow, woodland, and sky — and a stone estate that has been quietly watching over all of it for generations. This is Genouillé, a commune in the Vienne department of Poitou-Charentes, and this property is the kind of find that makes serious buyers stop scrolling and pick up the phone.
The estate is anchored by a substantial main house — proper stone walls, exposed timber beams that have darkened beautifully over the decades, and reception rooms large enough that a gathering of twenty people still feels unhurried. Four bedrooms, each with its own private shower room, mean that a multigenerational family or a group of close friends can arrive for two weeks in August and never queue for a bathroom. The private in-ground pool sits within the grounds of the main house, giving the primary residence its own self-contained world.
Completely separate and fully independent, the gîte adds another four to five bedrooms and a second pool. This is where the property starts to reveal its financial logic. Poitou-Charentes draws steady summer traffic — cyclists riding the Vélodyssée, families heading to the Marais Poitevin, history enthusiasts making their way between Romanesque churches — and good-quality rural gîtes in the Vienne book up fast from June through September. The infrastructure here is already in place. You're not building from scratch; you're stepping into a ready-made hospitality setup with genuine income potential.
The third structure on the property is a cottage: sitting room, dining space, one bedroom, bathroom. It works equally well as overflow accommodation for guests, a caretaker's quarters, or a private writing retreat tucked away from the main house energy. Having three distinct residential buildings on a single estate at this price point, in this setting, is unusual — rare is probably the more accurate word.
Then there are the barns. Two of them, at roughly 290 square metres and 220 square metres respectively, plus a large hangar. They're not decorative features — they're usable, covered space on a meaningful scale. For buyers thinking about equestrian use, the meadows and outbuildings make an obvious case. For someone with an eye on the hospitality sector, a converted barn becomes an events venue. For a family that simply wants storage, workshop space, and room for tractors and toys, there's plenty of that too. The estate rewards imagination.
Civray itself is about eight kilometres away — close enough to run in for a market morning at Place du Marché, pick up a rotisserie chicken, grab bread from the boulangerie on Rue de la République, and be back at the property before the coffee goes cold. The Wednesday and Saturday markets are the real rhythm of life here, farmers bringing in goat cheese from the Deux-Sèvres, local walnuts, strawberries from June onwards. Niort is around fifty kilometres northwest, Poitiers roughly sixty kilometres to the north — a city with a TGV connection to Paris that cuts the capital to just over an hour by train.
The climate in this part of France sits in a sweet spot. Summers are warm and long — reliably sunny from May through September, with July and August temperatures regularly touching 28 to 32 degrees — but without the scorching intensity of Provence. Spring arrives early, and the meadows go properly green. Autumn light in the Vienne is something painters talk about: golden, low-angled, lasting. Even winters here are mild by northern European standards, which matters for owners who want to use the property beyond the school holidays.
The surrounding countryside channels the best of rural France without any of the tourist-trap gloss. You can walk or mountain bike directly from the estate onto local trails through the Bois de Genouillé. The Charente river, which winds through nearby Civray, offers kayaking and fishing. The fortified medieval city of Charroux, with its famous abbaye ruins and twice-yearly farmers' market celebrating local produce, is a twenty-minute drive. Angoulême — home to the world-famous Festival International de la Bande Dessinée every January, one of Europe's biggest comic and graphic art festivals — is about an hour south.
For international buyers, the Poitou-Charentes region has long held appeal precisely because it hasn't been oversaturated. Property prices here remain significantly lower than Dordogne or Lot, while the quality of the countryside and the accessibility — Poitiers-Biard airport connects regionally, and Bordeaux airport is roughly two hours by car — make it genuinely practical for a European second home. France's legal framework for non-EU buyers is well-established, and the gîte income structure, under the statut de loueur en meublé, carries tax advantages worth discussing with a French fiscal advisor before purchase.
At 540 square metres across the main house alone, and with the gîte and cottage adding further habitable space, this is a property you grow into rather than out of. It's already in good condition — the bones are solid, the key amenities are functional — but there's clearly room to elevate finishes and landscaping over time as it becomes yours.
Key features at a glance:
- 9 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms spread across three independent residential buildings
- 540 sqm main house with exposed stone walls and original timber beams
- 14 hectares of grounds including meadows, woodland, and a private lake
- Two in-ground swimming pools — one for the main house, one for the gîte
- Fully independent 4-5 bedroom gîte with strong seasonal rental potential
- Self-contained one-bedroom cottage, ideal as a caretaker's residence or guest annexe
- Two large barns (290 sqm and 220 sqm) plus an additional hangar
- Panoramic views over rolling Poitou-Charentes countryside
- 8km from Civray town centre with weekly markets and daily amenities
- 60km from Poitiers with TGV rail access to Paris (approx. 1h20)
- Approximately 2 hours from Bordeaux-Mérignac international airport
- Strong potential for equestrian use, events hosting, or eco-tourism development
- Established income infrastructure with zero conversion required for gîte operation
- Mild four-season climate ideal for extended personal use beyond peak summer
- Move-in ready condition with scope for personalisation and value enhancement
Properties like this — the acreage, the lake, the multiple buildings, the outbuildings, at this price — don't stay available for long, and they don't come back to market often. If you're seriously considering a lifestyle estate in rural France, whether as a family retreat, an income-generating hospitality venture, or both, this is the kind of property that rewards a visit rather than a second-hand impression. Reach out to the Homestra team today to arrange a private viewing and get a full information pack, including details on rental income history, local planning permissions, and guidance for international purchasers navigating French property law.
Details
- Amount of bedrooms
- 9
- Size
- 540m²
- Price per m²
- €1,019
- Garden size
- 148265m²
- Has Garden
- No
- Has Parking
- No
- Has Basement
- No
- Condition
- good
- Amount of Bathrooms
- 8
- Has swimming pool
- Yes
- Property type
- House
- Energy label
Unknown
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