Living the French dream

IN 1984, Victor de Villalier described his French village, which he painstakingly created deep in the foothills of the Mangatarere Valley, as a truly blessed place. A devout Catholic, the buildings were blessed by a priest and a shrine to St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment, was erected. There's also a huge wooden cross high above the valley floor on the summit with views looking across Wairarapa.
The village's new owners, Susie and Kieran Shaw couldn't agree more about being blessed. From barren scrubland, Mr de Villalier created his dream of his own French village and the Shaws are wandering in an almost dreamlike state, hardly believing what they have found.
Among long grass and scrub they keep finding trinkets depicting Mr de Villalier's obsession with the French culture. From carved wooden rosettes and statues which used to adorn the gateway, to numerous signs lovingly chiselled in wood, "La Rue de Martin", is the main road into the property named after a friend. The miniature lake is signposted "Lac Josephe", and another "Foret de Alain".
The Shaws moved into the set of fairy-like buildings ? there's eight altogether ? known locally as "The French Village" in November and can't believe their luck to be living there.
"It found us really," says Mrs Shaw, who points up to the swirling blue mist hanging around the bush covered peaks above the cluster of buildings.
A nearby two-storey lodge, built recently, is now available corporate groups as well as individuals wanting to get away from it all. Their first guests were a French couple travelling New Zealand.
Mr de Villalier aptly called his fantasy project, Broulliard Bleu, blue mist.
Born in Carrassonne in the south of France, he came to New Zealand with his parents in the 1930s. Never forgetting his heritage he turned his Lower Hutt home into a showplace of French customs and cuisine and his purchases of the Mangatarere land in the early 1970s allowed him to indulge his imagination even further.
A few of the pieces of furniture are still at the Mangatarere village although many were looted after his death in 1992, when the place stood vacant for around five years.
The buildings were rapidly taken over by pine needles from the surrounding towering giant pines, now felled. Dampness and mould also took hold and the wooden board and batten structures could have easily rotted into the ground but for Keith Mason, a Wellington businessman who saw the opportunity to turn the unique place into a spiritual retreat.
In 1998, he re-named it the Discovery Retreat and offered accommodation to people wishing to recharge their batteries and have time out from daily life.
Mr and Mrs Shaw were already sampling the French life, albeit in Featherston, owning the "French Quarter", a homeware and accessory store and associated living quarters on the outskirts of Featherston in a historic general store.
Mr Shaw is also the chief executive of the Carterton District Council. They initially bought a small block of land in the Mangatarere Valley last year and got to know Mr Mason at his retreat.
"We got talking and learned he wanted to move on and was planning to subdivide, and so we grabbed the chance to purchase the village," says Mrs Shaw.
Not a vista inside or out has been left undecorated with some imaginative folly, and miniature windows not much bigger than a shoe box punctuate walls.
Mrs Shaw clearly enjoys the intricate detail which is on display at every turn.
"It's all so dreamy," she says.