Chris and Lone McCourt have a long history in Uzès, a small town of cobbled pedestrian lanes and ancient white limestone buildings in the south of France. Lone has been making regular trips there for 50 years, since she was a teenager, and Chris has been joining her for nearly as long. However, they still seem like newcomers compared to the house they bought in 2014, which was built in the 1200s.

reputedly once belonged to a cardinal. But when the McCourts purchased it five years ago, it was being used as a lawyer’s office and lacked such basic necessities as a kitchen. Since then, the London-based couple have painstakingly brought the Medieval building into the 21st century. " layout="" credit="Photo by Anders Hviid" photoUserId="6133433441874194432"/>

Even before it came up for sale, Chris and Lone, who call London home, knew the building well. An artist friend once lived in the top-floor loft, they had signed papers at the lawyer’s offices that occupied the two main floors, and they had dined at a restaurant beneath the building’s street-level arches, which serve as a public passageway.

When they finally toured the building with an eye toward buying it, “It immediately felt right, although it was in terrible interior condition,” says Chris, a bespoke furniture maker and the owner of Isokon Plus, a historic design brand known for its early connection to Bauhaus luminaries Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer as well as its contemporary pieces.

Generations of previous owners had added their own touches to the building—some good, some bad. “Probably in the 17th century, it was fancied up inside with plaster ceilings and molding, and marble fireplaces instead of rough stone fireplaces, as well as solid walnut doors,” says Chris. Those things were all worth preserving.

In the 20th century, however, steel girders were added to shore up the original stone staircase, and plastic conduits for makeshift computer networks were installed across the walls. At the same time, it lacked some essentials. Because it was last used as office space, Chris says, “What it didn’t have was a kitchen.”

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Nevertheless, “we weren’t frightened by it,” he says. As soon as the deal went through, they got to work with a team of contractors, peeling away the things they didn’t like. “We brought the building out of itself,” Chris says, by uncovering and restoring the older details. “It was really about pulling it back to what it was and not messing around with it.”

Now, the 3,750-square-foot building is a home where austere Late Medieval architecture blends with Baroque decorative flourishes and the couple’s collection of modern furniture and art. In the loft there are two studios—one for Lone, a textile designer, and another for Chris, who makes classical guitars by hand after studying under the North Carolina-based guru John Bogdanovich. Above the studios is a small observatory with an unobstructed 360-degree view over the town.

To create a kitchen, they flew to Copenhagen to study the modular systems made by Vipp. “As a furniture manufacturer, I had never bought a kitchen in my life,” says Chris. “I only made my own kitchens. I could have anything I wanted.” But at Vipp, they fell for the freestanding nature of the pieces, and sturdy, powder-coated steel construction. “We love the way it sits off the floor so it doesn’t block the stone,” says Chris, noting that their units aren’t even affixed to the walls.

When it came to running electricity, gas, and plumbing into the kitchen, they got lucky. “We brought services up through a ‘priest hole,’ an area hidden in the curve of the arches, where people could hide during religious wars or military campaigns,” says Chris. The couple barely had to disturb the original structure.

It took less than a year to complete the primary living spaces, but longer for other parts of the building. Specialists had to be called in to repair the staircase with new stone while removing the steel, as well as to restore the 800-square-foot cellar, where the residents plan to host private art exhibitions and music events in a space formed by stone walls that bear chisel marks from the original quarrying. Earlier this year, the building was completely enclosed by scaffolding as workers restored the exterior.

For Chris and Lone, nursing such a historic structure in such a beautiful town back to its original grandeur is well worth any inconvenience. “We feel so privileged to have this,” says Chris. “Some nights we just sit there and can’t quite believe it.”

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