Project 04Limestone wine house restoration44°53′38″N 000°09′20″W

Maison Calcaire

Client: Famille Delorme
Location: Saint-Émilion, France
Year: 2021
Area: 520 m²
Duration: 13 months
Structural engineer: Atelier Bouvier Structures, Bordeaux

01 — The projectSaint-Émilion, France, 2021

We took the facade apart stone by stone, and put it back a little straighter.

Maison Calcaire is an 1890 wine house cut into the limestone above Saint-Émilion, with cellars that run thirty metres into the hill. Its main facade had bowed outward by nine centimetres.

We numbered every stone of the facade, dismantled it, rebuilt it on a new reinforced footing and dressed the replacement stones by hand to match the original coursing.

The tasting room now opens through a tall oak door onto a new stair of the same stone, quarried two kilometres away.

Site 44°53′38″N 000°09′20″W

Pale limestone wall with a tall timber door above a wide flight of stone steps — Fig. 02 — The new stair, cut from the same limestone as the house

Fig. 03 — Ground floor plan1:200

Close-up of porous pale limestone — Fig. 04 — Local limestone, dressed by hand

Detail of Maison Calcaire — Fig. 05 — Detail of the finished building

02 — Materials and specifications06 items

Structure: Load-bearing limestone, new footing
Facade: Dismantled, numbered and rebuilt
Stone: Local limestone, dressed by hand
Doors: Solid oak, pegged joints
Cellars: Stabilised with stainless steel ties
Consent: Architecte des Bâtiments de France

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