Bastide (Provençal manor)

Bastide[1] is a local term for a manor house in Provence, in the south of France, located in the countryside or in a village, and originally occupied by a wealthy farmer.

A bastide is larger and more elegant than the farmhouse called a mas, and is square or rectangular, with a tile roof, walls of fine ashlar-stone sometimes covered with stucco or whitewashed, and often built in a square around a courtyard.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many bastides were used as summer houses by wealthy citizens of Marseille.

One well-known bastide in Provence is the Bastide Neuve, located in the village of La Treille near Marseille, which was a summer house for the family of French writer and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol.

César Soubeyran, the wealthy farmer in his novels Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, lived in a bastide.