Former French holiday home of legendary cook Julia Child for sale
Julia Child (1912 – 2004) is best known for such statements as “I believe in cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food” and for teaching Americans to cook French food. Now the home where she learnt so much about that style of cuisine is for sale for about £636,000 ($967,000 or €880,000).
Built by Julia Child and her civil servant and diplomat husband, Paul Cushing Child, in 1963, La Peetch as it was affectionately known (full name La Pitchoune or The Little One) was described as “the house built on friendship” according to the Childs grandnephew, Alex Prud’homme. It stands in the grounds of a farmhouse owned Jean Fischbacher and Simca Beck – an on-off collaborator of Julia Child’s.
Standing on a plot of 0.494 acres and listed as a “charming Provençal house near Cannes” in its marketing material, the 1,614 square foot “informal” house now features 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and though it has been improved by the present owners, Child’s kitchen – minus her Cornue stove – remains intact.
Sold back to the Fischbacher family in 1992 by Child, La Pitchoune was then rented by another American, Kathie Alex, who had first come to France to take cooking lessons with Simca Beck. She opened the house as a cookery school and then bought it for around $400,000 sometime in the late 1990s (the equivalent of circa £390,000 or $593,000 or €539,000 today).
Of it, the selling agent, Alexander Craft of Sotheby’s International Realty told the New York Times:
“You could almost say we’re selling the kitchen with the property thrown in. It’s really the same look and feel as one in the Smithsonian [where another of Child’s kitchens is now situated]. Whoever buys it is really buying a true piece of Julia Child’s history”.
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Julia was one of the most delightful, unpretentious and funny people I’ve ever known and I loved her dearly and even worked for her foundation briefly. She also knew how to take care of herself in any situation having been trained in Intelligence during WW11. Once a thief on a motorcycle reached into her car on a street in southern Italy and tried to steal her watch off her wrist. She grabbed his arm and stole his watch instead. She was in her 80’s at the time. That’s our Julia!
That is so funny! No much of mugger.
It reminds me of a friend, ex SAS, who was in Santiago negotiating a kidnap release. As he walked to his hotel a mugger demanded his watch. The next thing the mugger was on the ground with a broken leg.