Ever dreamed about “living an adventure and dream in la belle France”? Meet a couple who’s actually doing just that.
Every morning begins at 7 a.m. for Cait and Albert Woodbury at their bed and breakfast inn in Pont de Cause, in the Dordogne River Valley in southwest France. Albert gets the coffee going, hands a wake-up cup to Cait, then drives a mile to the village of Castelnaud to pick up fresh croissants and baguettes. Cait prepares saucers of fruit, jam and butter, then sets out the yogurt, cream and juice. By 8:30, their kitchen dining room is ready to receive the guests staying in the five suites in the adjoining barn and first-floor cellar of their 200-year-old limestone farmhouse.
The kitchen closes two hours later, guests go off, and the rest of the day’s work of keeping after a big house begins—cleaning and making up rooms for incoming guests, sweeping the pool, tending the garden, doing the laundry, shopping, minding the website and more.
The daily routine is repeated seven days a week with very few days off, May through October, when the Woodburys take their own European vacation before flying home to Sonoma County during the off-season to winter in their Santa Rosa home, reunite with family and friends, rest up, make a few dollars if they can find work, then head back for their “other” life in France.
“It’s demanding,” says Albert, a builder in Sonoma County for 38 years. “They say the average life of a B&B in the states is about seven years. It kills some marriages. This year will be our eighth season in France.”
“We’ve made sacrifices to do this,” admits Cait.
Maintaining two-season calendars on two continents can take its toll. “It gets a little tiresome packing up, unpacking, closing up one house and opening another twice a year,” says Albert.
“But the tradeoffs are worth it,” says Cait. “We’re living an adventure and dream in la belle France.”
And Albert has fulfilled a commitment he says he made to himself years ago. “I thought that if I didn’t do this I might regret it,” he says. “I’d decided to try to live my life without regrets.”
There are other rewards, and even some kudos. For three years running, the Woodbury’s B&B, La Tour de Cause, has been listed as an excellent choice for visitors to the Dordogne River in the Rick Steves’ France popular guidebook. Cait’s expertise on what’s up in Dordogne River Valley has also earned her a position as a source and researcher for the Dordogne section in Steves’ book. And Albert has earned standing among a very close-knit group of French builders and craftsmen for his restoration of the old home.
The inn has a steady clientele from Europe and the United States, including regular groups of visitors brought to Dordogne for food tours by Michael Hirschberg, the former Sonoma County chef and restaurateur whose firm, Darmiche, Inc., now provides financial services to some 25 North Bay restaurants.
Closer to their French home, the neighbors in the hamlet have embraced Cait and Albert. “Vous is out; tu is in,” Cait says of how the French long ago began using the familiar language forms when chatting with her. “That’s a measure of our acceptance.”
Getting there
The road to Dordogne, for the Woodburys, began in Sonoma County, where they were married in 1978. Cait, 56, grew up in Santa Rosa, attended college at San Jose State and Sonoma State universities and then went into the wine hospitality business, followed by a stint as an editorial assistant at The Press Democrat. Albert, 60, a Southern California native, went to school at College of the Redwoods and Sonoma State University and then became a carpenter.
“We first entertained the idea of operating a B&B before we had kids,” says Cait. “We saw a real need in Sonoma County. We used to drive by a house on Westside Road—an old Victorian attached to a big vineyard—and talk about it. But it was complicated. And we had no money. Then we were raising Dylan [now 30] and Rebecca [now 27].”
Their jobs and lifestyles, however, ultimately made them a good fit for the B&B business.
Albert got his contractor’s license, built homes and, over the years, made his mark restoring old and historic properties, including Jack London’s cottage at the Jack London State Park in Sonoma Valley. He also developed an important professional relationship with a Santa Rosa property owner, for whom he restored several homes in historic neighborhoods.
Cait went into the hospitality business, working in tasting rooms in Dry Creek Valley and Kenwood. “I enjoyed the tasting room work, talking to people from all over the world, being a resource for them—where they could stay, drawing maps. I was a mini visitor’s bureau,” Cait says. “And, back in those days, Albert and I always kept talking about a B&B.”
The idea was freshened after a couple of trips they made to France. The first one was in 1998, when the Woodburys and their kids accompanied Cait’s parents, Doug and the late Elizabeth Campbell, on a week-long river canal cruise in the Burgundy region. It was to mark the elder Campbells’ 50th wedding anniversary.
“Albert always said he had no interest in Europe. He preferred tropical, surfing vacations,” says Cait. “But he fell in love with France. After the cruise, we drove through Dordogne Valley, took a couple snapshots and said, ‘We’ll be back.’”
They did go back in 2000 for another canal trip. French chateaus and small cottages seemed to be for sale everywhere. The prices were very affordable and the dollar was strong. They decided to seriously investigate moving to France. First they thought of a small cottage just for them, then something larger—suitable for a B&B. “We concluded we had to have property that would earn income,” says Cait.
But they still lacked investment money.
Enter Daphne Smith, a retired Ursuline High School and Santa Rosa Junior College French teacher for whom Albert had restored several historic properties in downtown Santa Rosa.
Smith liked the idea and rounded out the business venture, offering to become the financial backer. Cait had hospitality experience and a good start on speaking French. And Smith knew Albert could restore a building. “We’d done quite a few projects together, and I thought over the years I’d eventually do something in France,” says Smith. “Albert asked me to go along, and I said OK.”
With Smith’s commitment, the search for property focused on the Sarlat area of the Dordogne River region in the Valley of Five Chateaus, known for prehistoric cave art, recreational opportunities on the river, hiking trails and nearby rock climbing walls, open-air markets and, of course, la vie de France. It’s close to train service and easy auto rides to Toulouse to the south (two hours), Bordeaux to the west (two hours) and north to Paris (six hours).
Albert’s needs were specific. An older home, several centuries at least. Something that had survived the years without being remodeled too many times or at all, and that retained its original structural and design integrity.
The search began in January 2001, when Albert scoured the countryside for two weeks. He and Cait returned the following October. They looked at houses with interior stone walls that were “wrecked,” says Albert, because of three or more generations of tacky remodeling. They also looked at homes with falling-down interior walls changed or damaged only by time, not a handyman. “Perfect,” Albert would say.
The last property they saw was in Pont de Cause, a small hamlet at the intersection of four roads and on the banks of the crystal-clear, spring-fed Céou River, which flows into the Dordogne at Castelnaud.
“When we saw this place, something called out to us,” says Cait. “It hadn’t been wrecked by someone else’s idea.”
“It was a maison de maître, the master’s house of the hamlet,” says Albert of the limestone house and attached barn on about three acres that climb a steep hillside marked by a stone pigeonnier (pigeon tower) at the top edge of the property.
It seemed doable.
A few weeks later, back in Santa Rosa, Cait called a realtor in Sarlat to discuss a possible offering price for the property. He called back 15 minutes later.
“He said: ‘C’est bon. They accepted your offer,’” Cait recalls. “I hadn’t really realized I’d made an offer.” She called Albert into the kitchen and reported, “I think we just bought the house.”
That was December 2001. The deal closed the following spring. The price: $170,000. The Woodburys and Daphne Smith were co-owners of the property. Cait and Albert would own and operate a B&B business.
Building the business
Albert suspended his contracting business and, with a shipping crate of tools, headed for Dordogne in October 2002 to begin a restoration and remodeling job that took 20 months, much of it a one-man show except when his son, Dylan, could get away to help.
Albert tore out false ceilings and removed failed plaster that covered the interior of the limestone walls, the result of remodeling done in the 1930s. The exposed rock walls were beautiful, but porous and damp; frigid air poured in. It was a miserable winter, Albert says.
“That first year of building was cold. I stuffed newspapers into the cracks where the old wood floor met the limestone walls, and I burned a lot of wood,” he says.
Cait and their dog, Heather, joined the work party in January 2003 and stayed until the fall. Rebecca, who was having her own European adventure in Prague, visited several times to pitch in.
First, they made the house habitable: two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen and living room over a cellar and next to the barn. Five B&B suites, each with its own bath and one with a small kitchen, were built for the business—one under the house and four others in the barn, two rooms up and two down.
Work on the property was extensive: French drains, roofing, new floors and wiring, plumbing and heating. On the property’s perimeter, ancient roads (many in the area date back to Roman times) needed repairs. Rock walls were constructed. A back lawn and garden were planted.
Space was reserved for a court for pétanque (the French game similar to Italian bocce ball). A swimming pool was constructed on high ground behind the house. Albert fashioned a makeshift forge to cast an iron fence, railings and a gate around the pool. The path to the pigeonnier was cleared, revealing old, untended—but surviving—grapevines.
Albert subcontracted work to local builders, masons, painters, roofers, heavy equipment operators, electricians and others. Language was often as big a challenge as the restoration. Most of the contractors spoke almost no English. Albert spoke almost no French.
They introduced to each other their own unique building practices, respected each other’s turfs, and together constructed and finished modern bedroom suites without violating or abandoning the 200-year-old oak timbers that held up the walls and the style of windows consistent with the era during which the house was built.
“It took a while for the local craftsmen to decide I knew what I was doing,” says Albert, but after a while he was welcome at the table during the workers’ long French lunches.
Then Cait and Albert went about outfitting their B&B. They drove to Toulouse to find beds (slightly larger than an American queen-size) and bedding. Sheets and pillow cases were ordered from a mill in Italy.
They hunted through antique stores and flea markets for armoires and other bedroom furnishings. They purchased dishes for the kitchen in which Albert installed a commercial-sized gas range and a table big enough to seat 10 comfortably. Albert built a small house outside the kitchen for a laundry, and they established a website to tell the touring world of their existence.
A trip to the Hotel De Ville and mayor’s office produced the name given the B&B, La Tour De Cause. Cait spotted it on an old 1838 map, written in script around the pigeon tower. “It’s apparently the historic name for the pigeonnier up on the hill,” says Cait.
Cait says the word cause is an apparent misspelling (or alternate spelling) of the word causse, which is a geologic term for the limestone plateaus and cliffs of the region. “In English, I suppose the closest approximation would be The Tower on the Limestone Hill or Tower on Chalk Hill.”
After making a last trip home to California to empty and rent the Santa Rosa house and quit her job at The Press Democrat, Cait returned to Dordogne in spring 2004 to open the B&B. The first customers arrived in May—Michael Hirschberg and his bunch of foodies.
Smith visited the property before and after the work began and says the remodel was a huge task. “The house had been rather badly treated. No one had lived there for a long time,” she says. “Albert did a beautiful job. For someone who’d worked primarily with wood, he was a quick study on how to handle stone.”
How much it all cost, the partners don’t exactly say. “Rule of thumb says the cost to rehabilitate a house is about twice what you pay for it,” says Cait. “That gives you an idea.”
Travelers welcome
In terms of customer satisfaction and popularity, La Tour de Cause seems to be a success. “We’ve had Italians, Americans, English, Spanish, Australians and quite a few French, and they really like it,” says Albert. “Nobody who stopped by and looked at a room went away.
“We’re the most expensive place in the neighborhood,” he adds. The standard room runs 92 euros (about $125, depending on exchange rates) per night for a double or 75 euros for a single. In the first year, they had 10 percent occupancy, which has grown steadily since. “Incrementally, it gets better each year,” he says. “And the recession has had little impact on us.”
They’ve had a regular and steady stream of visitors from the North Bay, brought to them by Michael Hirschberg, who expanded his restaurant consulting business to include “French Food and Wine Excursions” and uses the Woodbury’s inn as a home base for week-long tours through the Dordogne countryside. He’s filled the place for several weeks almost every year, and he’ll be back again this summer.
“We’ve had rave reviews and everybody loves it,” he says. “The beautiful views overlooking the river make it perfect for art groups as well.”
The mention in the Rick Steve’s guidebook has been helpful, too: “La Tour de Cause is where California refugees Albert and Caitlin have found their heaven, amid their renovated farmhouse with five top-quality rooms, a well-tended garden, a big pool and, best of all, a pétanque court,” Steves wrote. “Albert restores homes in California and has brought his considerable talent to France.”
The French style of life
The Woodburys aren’t getting rich running a B&B in France, and they say they didn’t expect to. “But it’s been the lifestyle change we were looking for,” says Cait.
And there’s the maddening charm of the French.
“The things that frustrate us about the French are the same things that attract us,” she says. “The French in this part of southern France are pretty laid back. They aren’t always reliable and efficient. They’ll close a restaurant unexpectedly or change their minds at the drop of a hat for a personal reason. I love that. I respect that their priorities are more geared to their families than to make a buck. The slower pace, conversation, families, meals—they all trump business.
Running La Tour de Cause is hard work. Cait and Albert really can’t leave the house for any length of time from May to October or they risk losing business. It’s a seven-day workweek. There’s no end to the laundry. You can’t call it quits until the kitchen is clean and the table set for tomorrow’s breakfast. And you have to like to entertain and meet the needs of your clientele, especially many Americans who aren’t always well-traveled, are sometimes short on language skills and who often show up a little needy, grateful to find a pillow whose owner speaks English.
But there’s the continuous adventure and challenges of living in a foreign nation, speaking French and being able to make it work, making friends with the French and other expatriates.
“And it’s so beautiful,” says Cait. “The views: a castle on every horizon, sun on the river, a lone canoeist coming down the current. There are moments when we can sit on the porch, open a bottle of wine and time stands still. Every day there’s something, even when we’re working our butts off.”
