Vacations can be truly transformative, as Anouck Leclercq and Jean-Baptiste Oger both well know. In 2021, the French couple booked a trip to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands that totally changed their lives. After 10 days of living outdoors, in tune with nature, and visiting ceramic workshops and houses designed by the Spanish artist, architect, sculptor and activist César Manrique, whose ecological vision resonated with their own, they felt as if they had had a “complete reset.” They wanted to reinvent themselves, and on their flight home hatched an idea that soon became reality. “Anouck quickly left her job,” explains Jean-Baptiste. “In November of the same year, we signed Maison Légère, and in December we created Superchinerie. The reset of our life had begun.”
Sitting atop a hill in the Perche Sarthois region of France, Maison Légère enjoys views of the rolling countryside. “It was love at first sight,” the couple says. And as an “added extra, there were already two donkeys living here, which we wanted to adopt, so we took that as a sign.”
At the time, the couple were looking for an escape within two hours of Paris. Today, they divide their time between fast-paced life in the Haut Marais district and the slow seclusion of their Perche Sarthois home: “It is the combination that gives us balance,” they say. After three years’ self-renovation, alongside the development of their secondhand tableware business, the couple feel lighter and happier.
Earlier this year, Maison Légère opened its doors as a quiet, eco-conscious vacation rental, sleeping seven, to allow others to switch off, to slow down and to reconnect to nature—to the essential things in life, in fact.
Let’s have a look at their re-imagined home and holiday accommodation in more detail.
Photography by Elodie Gutbrod, Leger Saint Mahr and Nathalie Mohadjer, courtesy of Maison Légère.
For more information on Maison Légère’s offerings, and to book, head over here.
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