Year in provence writer sells french abode

His best-selling tales of village life in Provence helped send property prices through the roof in the south of France, Now, writer Peter Mayle is selling his Provençal home – for €6 million.

The British author, whose stories of life in the Luberon have sold millions of copies, moved on long ago from the farmhouse he restored chapter by chapter in his 1989 book A Year in Provence . He now owns an 18th-century house on the outskirts of the village of Lourmarin, said to be one of the most beautiful villages in France and the burial place of the French writer Albert Camus who spent his Nobel Prize money on a farmhouse there in 1958.

Located, 50kms from Aix en Provence and less than an hour’s drive from Marseilles airport, Mayle’s property is one of the finest in the area. Three storeys high, the 600sq m (6,458sq ft) house is shaded by enormous plane trees, and has several terraces overlooking either formal gardens or the large infinity pool.

Described by selling agents Emile Garcin as a “a sublime and authentic property away from inquisitive eyes”, the many-shuttered house stands in 5.7 hectares of grounds that include an olive grove, a rose garden, two ponds and a vegetable garden.