Real Life: Escaping the rat race for a cabin in the French mountains

Despite planning struggles and Covid lockdowns, Martin Jones feels fortunate to call the Pyrénées home -and he’s delighted to be able to share it with others too…

Before moving here, we lived in Cheltenham, where I had a small electrical and building company and my wife Pippa was a professional dressage rider and coach. I had caught skiing for 28 years and lived and worked all over the world doing that. Although I did many back-to-back seasons, worked as an electrician or builder in between. I finally stopped full-time seasons in 2007, but always knew I wanted a life in the mountains.

Living in the UK was busy and stressful. I had become tangled up in the rat race that I promised myself I’d never become part of. Pippa and I had begun to think about having a family; I really wanted to have a child in the mountains. Around that time, a big contract came to an end for Pippa, and I had the chance to sell the majority of my company. The plan was to earn a little from the stake I had left and do something with a small amount of savings and the money from the sale. Randomly, at this time, a job came up in dressage for Pippa in France, near the Pyrénées. We decided to take the leap to see if we could both adjust to life abroad. We would give it a year to clear our heads of our busy UK lives.

We moved to France in July 2015, to a slower pace of life. It was just the break we needed. However, I had zero French, just please and thank you. I could also order tea with milk. Pippa had rusty school French. The first weekend here, we visited the Pyrénées and the valley we now call home and fell in love with it. We continued to visit many places in France and Europe during our first year here, but the pull of the Pyrénées was incredible.

About a year into living in France, we hatched a plan to move to the mountains, and build a little wooden house and cabins to run as gîtes. We calculated we could just about do this with savings and any assets we had on a self-build basis, but it would be tight. Life was good. It was now summer 2016, we had our plan and we actively started to look for land. We soon realised the property market in France was very different to the UK. We were chasing agents and private sellers, begging to see their land as prospective buyers. But we persevered and looked at many plots.

Towards the end of 2016, we stumbled across ‘the one’. A relatively steep bit of land with the most incredible views, in a wide valley with plenty of sun. It was on an east bank and got the evening sunshine. My lovely stepfather, who had been in my life since I was one year old, unfortunately died at the end of 2016. He had seen details and photos of this amazing piece of land though. It was a huge blow but we tried to be optimistic and pushed forward with our plans. We signed the first contract on the land in March 2017. Pippa had become pregnant, we planned to marry that September, and I aimed to have the house built for our daughter’s arrival in December.

Things then started taking a turn for the worse. With Pippa being pregnant, and our plans to move on being apparent, our employers-with whom we had tied accommodation-started to become difficult and we were gradually forced out of our home. We found ourselves in a difficult situation. Pippa was five months pregnant, we had lost our accommodation, our employer refused severance pay that was owed, and we watched our savings disintegrate as the exchange rate tumbled. Also, it came to light the person I had trusted with the majority of my old company was asset-stripping the business. Plus the planning in France was a nightmare and any hope of building in 2017 had gone out of the window.

All of this led me to have a nervous breakdown in mid-2017, which lasted around two months. Pippa was getting closer to her due date and me being in that state was the last thing she needed, but that just made it worse. She remained incredibly strong and held everything together. Friends rallied round and found us accommodation and we received a lot of support that we shall be eternally grateful for. With our upcoming wedding and the birth of our daughter to focus on, I started to heal.

We married in France in the September, surrounded by 100 of our lovely friends and family. It was a beautiful occasion that filled our hearts and completed my healing. We also had plans to live in the Alps for one season after our daughter was born, and then come back to build our house. Amelie was born in France in December 2017, completing our little family, and we moved to the Alps. We finalised all our house plans remotely, and I taught skiing for the winter so we didn’t keep eating into our shrinking capital. We finally submitted the plans in March 2018, with a view to starting the building work in June.

We returned to the Pyrénées with a now six-month-old baby, to a rented house that we lived in for five months while I built our home. We also came back to a fresh battle: our new mayor… Our planning application was refused and re-issued nine times in June. There were various tense communications between myself and the mayor before our planning was granted. Little did I know I had won the battle, but this was now war!

With our diminishing funds I built our wooden kit house in three months and 27 days. We moved in on 24 October 2017. Thankfully, we were in a week before the first snow. The process nearly killed me, physically and mentally; what an experience. Buying materials without much spoken French and navigating the administrative system was challenging. However, our family had a warm house ready for winter.

I was just €4,000 over budget. The house cost us €96,000 to build and the land with fees €28,000. But we were now out of money. The events and delays of 2016 had taken their toll, not only on us, but also on our bank balance. In 2019, we focused on the gites as we needed a steady income and wanted to push our dream forward in this beautiful tourist area. I worked hard over winter and spring and with some kind help from family, got one gite built, a tiny wooden kit house. We had to put planning in again as we had changed the locations of the gites – it was a straightforward amendment, we were told.

However, the mayor refused planning, for buildings it had already been granted for, and once again we locked horns. I carried on building but he sent huissiers (bailiffs) with court papers to stop me. The basic structure was up so we put plastic on the roof and fought a battle for the rest of the year. I managed to save more and took a chance on ordering a second cabin, which sat there unassembled, covered in plastic. I also took reservations for the ski season.

Finally, we got planning permission in early November. I had a ski booking for early December, so we began work again around the clock. I built the second cabin, insulated both roofs and installed the roof covering, during a very harsh November. Then we moved inside to complete the first cabin, with a day to spare.

From day one, the cabin was a hit-fully booked. It’s a small, fully equipped cosy space with a private entrance and deck. Business was flying and we couldn’t wait to get the second one finished and a third ordered in the spring.

Then Covid hit. March 2020 saw us having to shut our doors. Luckily, we had some revenue on our books, which allowed us to get a small amount of government help. For us as a family, selfishly, it was a sacred time. We were forced to stop, something we hadn’t done for a couple of years. We worked in our garden and enjoyed being together in our beautiful environment, at the same time feeling sorry for those who weren’t so lucky.

Fast forward to later that year. Builders’ merchants opened back up, allowing me to finish the second cabin and we were permitted to open both gites for summer. We had fewer restrictions than many as we had private entrances, so we were flying again. The second lockdown then hit and this time the government gave us zero help. Having spent any income on developing our cabins and ordering a third, this really hurt.

Once this lockdown was lifted however, the cabins were full again and I was able to build the third by the end of 2020 in time for the ski season. A season that didn’t happen as due to Covid, the lifts didn’t open. But all three cabins were full, as people were desperate to get away after the pandemic. Since then, the gites have blown us away with their occupancy levels. The only month we are slightly quieter is November. So, since November 2020, we’ve offered the cabins for free to anyone struggling. We know how difficult things can get and are eternally grateful for the help we’ve been given. We believe that it’s important to do what you can for people, and this is one thing we can do.

We’ve met so many lovely people doing this. During November 2024, we had eight groups staying, those struggling with mental health, illness, bereavement, separation and so on. It’s nice to share a bit of this beautiful place and mountain air, and to help people with whatever is going on in their lives.

Find out more at:

gomilaby.com

ameski.com

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