Toujours Provence (11 page)

The reactions to his welcome reflect, with some accuracy, the change of the seasons. During the winter, when our visitors, are, like us, people who live in the Luberon throughout the year, the head in the groin is either ignored or patted, leaves and twigs are brushed off old corduroy trousers, and the smooth progress of glass to mouth continues without interruption. When this is replaced by starts of surprise, spilt drinks, and flustered attempts to fend off the questing snout from clean white clothes, we know that summer has arrived. And with it, the summer people.

Each year there are more of them, coming down for the sun and the scenery as they always have, and now encouraged by two more recent attractions.

The first is practical: Provence is becoming more accessible every year. There is talk of the TGV high-speed train from Paris cutting half an hour off its already quick four-hour service to Avignon. The tiny airport just outside the town is being extended, and will undoubtedly soon be calling itself Avignon International. A giant green model of the Statue of Liberty has been erected in front of the Marseille airport to announce direct flights twice a week to and from New York.

At the same time, Provence has been “discovered” yet again—and not only Provence in general, but the towns and villages where we shop for food and rummage through the markets. Fashion has descended upon us.

The bible of the Beautiful People,
Women’s Wear Daily
, which pronounces on the proper length of hem, size of bust, and weight of earrings in New York, ventured last year into Saint-Rémy and the Lubéron. High-profile summer residents were shown squeezing their aubergines, sipping their
kirs
,
admiring their barbered cypress trees, and generally getting away from it all—with each other and an attendant photographer,
bien sûr
—to revel in the pleasures of the simple country life.

In American
Vogue
, the world’s most cloyingly pungent magazine, with its impregnated perfume advertisements, an article on the Lubéron was sandwiched between Athena Star-woman’s horoscopes and a Paris Bistro Update. In the introduction to the article, the Lubéron was described as “the secret South of France”—a secret that lasted two lines before it was also described as the country’s most fashionable area. How the two go together is a contradiction that only a plausible subeditor could explain.

The editors of French
Vogue
, of course, were in on the secret as well. Indeed, they had known about it for some time, as they made clear to the reader in the introduction to their article. In fine world-weary vein, they led off by saying
le Lubéron, c’est fini
, followed by some disparaging suggestions that it might be snobbish, expensive, and altogether
démodé
.

Could they really have meant it? No, they couldn’t. Far from being finished, the Lubéron is apparently still attracting Parisians and foreigners who, according to
Vogue
, are
often famous
. (How often? Once a week? Twice a week? They didn’t say.) And then we are invited to meet them. Come with us,
Vogue
says, into their very private world.

Good-bye privacy. For the next twelve pages, we are treated to photographs of the often famous with their children, their dogs, their gardens, their friends, and their swimming pools. There is a map—
le who’s who
—showing where the chic members of Lubéron society are trying, rather unsuccessfully it seems, to hide themselves. But hiding is out of the question. These poor devils can’t even have a swim or a drink without
a photographer darting out of the bushes to capture the moment for the delectation of
Vogue
’s readers.

Among the photographs of artists, writers, decorators, politicians, and tycoons is a picture of a man who, as the caption says, knows all the houses in the area and who accepts three dinner invitations at the same time. The reader may think that this is merely the result of a deprived childhood or an insatiable craving for
gigot en croûte
, but it is nothing of the kind. Our man is working. He is a real estate agent. He needs to know who’s looking, who’s buying, and who’s selling, and there just aren’t enough dinners in the normal day to keep him
au courant
.

It’s a hectic business being a real estate agent in the Lubéron, particularly now that the area is passing through a fashionable phase. Property prices have inflated like a three-dinner stomach, and even during our short time as residents we have seen increases that defy reason or belief. A pleasant old ruin with half a roof and a few acres of land was offered to some friends for three million francs. Other friends decided to build instead of converting, and were in shock for a week at the estimate: five million francs. A house with possibilities in one of the favored villages? One million francs.

Naturally, the agent’s fees are geared to these zero-encrusted prices, although the exact percentage varies. We have heard of commissions ranging from 3 to 8 percent, sometimes paid by the seller, sometimes by the buyer.

It can add up to a very comfortable living. And, to the outsider, it may appear to be a congenial way to earn that living; it’s always interesting to look at houses, and often the buyers and sellers are interesting as well (not always honest or reliable, as we shall see, but seldom dull). As a
métier
, being a real estate agent in a desirable part of the world
theoretically offers a stimulating and lucrative way to pass the time in between dinners.

It is not, alas, without its problems, and the first of these is competition. Nearly six yellow pages in the Vaucluse telephone directory are taken up by real estate agents and their advertisements—properties of style, properties of character, exclusive properties, quality properties, hand-picked properties, properties of guaranteed charm—the house hunter is spoiled for choice and baffled by the terminology. What is the difference between character and style? Should one go for something exclusive or something hand-picked? The only way to find out is to take your dreams and your budget along to an agent and spend a morning, a day, a week among the
bastides
, the
mas
, the
maisons de charme
, and the white elephants that are currently on offer.

Finding an agent in the Lubéron is no more difficult than finding a butcher. In the old days, the village
notaire u
sed to be the man who knew if
Mère
Bertrand was selling off her old farm, or if a recent death had made a house empty and available. To a large extent, the
notaire’s
function as a property scout has been taken over by the agent, and almost every village has one. Ménerbes has two. Bonnieux has three. The more fashionable Gordes had, at the last count, four. (It was in Gordes that we saw competition in the raw. One agent was distributing flyers to all the cars parked in the Place du Château. He was followed at a discreet distance by a second agent who was taking the flyers off the windscreens and replacing them with his own. Unfortunately, we had to leave before seeing if the third and fourth agents were lurking behind a buttress waiting for their turn.)

Without exception, these agents are initially charming and helpful, and they have dossiers filled with photographs of
ravishing properties, some of them actually priced at less than seven figures. These, inevitably, are the ones that have just been sold, but there are others—mills, nunneries, shepherd’s hovels, grandiose
maisons de maître
, turreted follies, and farmhouses of every shape and size. What a selection! And this is only one agent.

But if you should go to see a second agent, or a third, you may experience a definite feeling of
déjà vu
. There is something familiar about many of the properties. The photographs have been taken from different angles, but there’s no doubt about it. These are the same mills and nunneries and farmhouses that you saw in the previous dossier. And there you have the second problem that bedevils the life of a Lubéron agent: There are not enough properties to go round.

Building restrictions in most parts of the Lubéron are fairly stringent, and they are more or less observed by everyone except farmers, who seem to be able to build at will: And so the supply of what agents would call properties with
beaucoup d’allure
is limited. This situation brings out the hunting instinct, and many agents during the less busy winter months will spend days driving around, eyes and ears open for signs or rumor that an undiscovered jewel may shortly be coming on the market. If it is, and if the agent is quick and persuasive enough, there is the chance of an exclusive arrangement and full commission. What usually happens, though, is that a seller will retain two or three agents and leave them to sort out the delicate matter of how the fees should be split.

More problems. Who introduced the client? Who showed the property first? The agents may be obliged to collaborate, but the competitive streak is barely hidden, and nothing brings it out in the open faster than a little misunderstanding
about the division of the spoils. Accusations and counteraccusations, heated phone calls, pointed remarks about unethical behavior—even, as a last resort, an appeal to the client to act as referee—all these unhappy complications have been known to upset liaisons that started off with such high hopes. That is why the
cher collègue
of yesterday can turn into the
escroc
of today.
C’est dommage, mais …

There are other, heavier crosses for the agent to bear, and these are the clients, with their unpredictable and frequently shady behavior. What is it that turns the outwardly trustworthy and respectable minnow into a shark? Money has a lot to do with it, obviously, but there is also a determination to do a deal, to haggle up to the last minute and down to the final light bulb, which is not so much a matter of francs and centimes as a desire to win, to outnegotiate the other side. And the agent is stuck in the middle.

The tussle over the price is probably the same throughout the world, but in the Lubéron there is an added local complication to muddy the waters of negotiation still further. More often than not, prospective buyers are Parisians or foreigners, while prospective sellers are
paysans du coin
. There is a considerable difference between the attitude that each side brings to business dealings, which can cause everyone concerned in the transaction weeks or months of exasperation.

The peasant finds it hard to take yes for an answer. If the price he has asked for his grandmother’s old
mas
is agreed to without any quibbling, he has an awful suspicion that he has underpriced the property. This would cause him grief for the rest of his days, and his wife would nag him endlessly about the better price that a neighbor obtained for
his
grandmother’s old
mas
. And so, just when the buyers think they have bought,
the seller is having second thoughts. Adjustments will have to be made. The peasant arranges a rendezvous with the agent to clarify certain details.

He tells the agent that he may have neglected to say that a field adjoining the house—the very same field, as luck would have it, with the well in the corner and a good supply of water—is not included in the price.
Pas grand chose
, but he thought he’d better mention it.

Consternation from the buyers. The field was
undoubtedly
included in the price. In fact, it is the only possible place on the property flat enough for the tennis court. Their dismay is communicated to the peasant, who shrugs. What does he care about tennis courts? Nevertheless, he is a reasonable man. It is a fertile and valuable field, and he would hate to part with such a treasure, but he might be prepared to listen to an offer.

Buyers are usually impatient, and short of time. They work in Paris or Zurich or London, and they can’t be coming down to the Lubéron every five minutes to look at houses. The peasant, on the other hand, is never in a hurry. He’s not going anywhere. If the property doesn’t sell this year, he’ll put up the price and sell it next year.

Back and forth the discussions go, with the agent and the buyers becoming increasingly irritated. But when a deal is eventually done, as it usually is, the new owners try to put all thoughts of resentment behind them. It is, after all, a wonderful property, a
maison de rêve
, and to celebrate the purchase they decide to take a picnic and spend the day wandering through the rooms and planning the changes they’re going to make.

Something, however, is not as it should be. The handsome
old cast-iron bathtub with the claw feet has disappeared from the bathroom. The buyers call the agent. The agent calls the peasant. Where is the bathtub?

The bathtub? His sainted grandmother’s bathtub? The bathtub that is a family heirloom? Surely nobody would expect a rare object of such sentimental value to be included in the sale of a house? Nevertheless, he is a reasonable man, and might possibly be persuaded to consider an offer.

It is incidents such as this that have led buyers to tread warily along the path that leads to the
acte de vente
when the house will officially be theirs—sometimes behaving with the caution of a lawyer approaching an opinion. Inventories are made of shutters and door-knockers and kitchen sinks, of logs in the woodstore and tiles on the floor and trees in the garden. And in one marvelously mistrustful episode, even multiple inventories were thought to be insufficient protection against last-minute chicanery.

Fearing the worst, the buyer had engaged a local
huissier
, or legal official. His task was to verify, beyond any shadow of legal doubt, that the seller was leaving behind the lavatory paper holders. It is tempting to imagine the two of them, seller and
huissier
, jammed together in the confined space of the lavatory to conduct the formalities: “Raise your right hand and repeat after me: I solemnly swear to leave intact and functioning these fittings hereafter described …” The mind boggles.

Despite these and a hundred other snags, properties continue to sell at prices that would have been inconceivable 10 years ago. I recently heard Provence being enthusiastically promoted by an agent as “the California of Europe,” not only because of the climate, but also because of something indefinable
and yet irresistible that was originally invented in California: the Life-style.