Le Koutère
Location saisonnière
chalet montagne Praranger
Vallée des Belleville - 3 Vallées
LES MENUIRES - ST MARTIN DE BELLEVILLE
The Koutère's Chalet
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It's the name we have choice for this chalet born from the renovation an old farm located in Belleville valley.
In the tradition of the Valley of Belleville, the KOUTERE is nothing other than a bench exposed to the south on which the old ones of the village came to be heated while the young people worked under their eyes.
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According to mood, the KOUTERE was a place of oral tradition but also the place where the present remade the world far from turbulences of the world. With the image of old of the Valley, take also time to sit you on the old bench exposed to the south and let your imagination make the remainder...
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The chalet is separated in 2 independent and spacious duplex apartments, each 120 m2. The first one (La GRANGE) can accommodate 10 to 12 people, while the second (Les VOUTES who will be available for the 2007-2008 season) can sleep from 8 to 10 people. The car park at front of the chalet can accommodate 3 cars. A big public car park is planned near by.
La Grange
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This apartment of a little over than 120m2 was set up for winter 2006.
IT was constructed within the original barn. When we opened the doors of this barn in January 2005, we found a cereal threshing area made up of a floor. The flails were still hanging up on the wall.
Next to the threshing area was a beaten earth floor where some old gears and various wood pieces were laid. A big stock of hay was still stored in this barn.
Just above us, we found a frame in good condition, covered by a flagstone roof through which one could see the sky in many spots.
Our first work was to clear the barn of everything that was stored inside, then to remove the beaten earth in order to asses if the vaults were in perfect shape and could stand the weight of a concrete slab.
We decided to keep the vaults by filling the hollows with small balls of light clay prior to casting the concrete slab together with a ground heating system.
Once the slab was set up, we built a floor in order to construct a story, dismantled the entire roof to repair the frame before assembling a “mountain roof”, perfectly watertight and insulated. We could replace all the rafters and remove, clean and put the original flagstones back.
All these labors were completed strictly according to the traditional building techniques and resources of the valley.
La Vôute
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This superb flat of 120m2 has got large room of 65m2 under vault (living-room, cloakroom) that's why we have simply decided to give it “LA VOUTE” like name.
This flat is both particular and charming with his central pillar under vault. We think you'll appreciate it.
Men and animals used to live under vault the whole winter until the sixties. They were very closed for sharing human heat.
There probably used to be 7 or 8 cows, "Tarines" or "Abondances", few goats, and 2 or 3 pigs in the cowshed. In the corner, a window allowed a little bit of light to bring in a small room with low side made of wood. And there, the farmer and his family used to live in this place of twenty square meters.