“We would have believed in The Walking Dead”… They bought an abandoned holiday village to restore it

Dump everything for a ghost town. In life, some sometimes opt for radical choices. The pandemic of Covid-19 has also accelerated this trend with more and more people who have decided to send everything upside down to change their lives. This is the case of Julia Simon and her husband Brian. Before the crisis, this Franco-American couple led a rather comfortable life on the other side of the Atlantic, where the Frenchwoman settled fifteen years ago.

Originally from Reims, this mother of a three-year-old boy managed two fashion showrooms in New York and Los Angeles while her husband, a native of Ohio, tracked down radioactivity in the medical sector.

Brian and Julia said goodbye to the hectic New York life following the Covid-19 pandemic. -Julia Simon

But in the spring of 2021, the wave of Covid-19 turned their career plans upside down. “We were fed up with the city, especially my husband who is a big lover of the countryside, says Julia. I also wanted to be closer to my family. A little less than two years later, they are now settled in Guitté, a small town of 718 souls located on the border between Côtes-d’Armor and Ille-et-Vilaine.

“Everything had been broken and looted”

In this space-time rift, the couple redeemed Ker Ar Lann holiday village, located in a 22-hectare green setting overlooking the Rance valley. A seemingly idyllic setting. Except that the holiday village in question, made up of 40 lodgings, around thirty rooms and a campsite, has not seen tourists for a long time. Abandoned by its last owner, the Escapia association, which closed in early 2021, the site now looks like a ghost town. “When we came to visit it for the first time, we would have thought we were in The Walking Dead “recalls Julia.

The site has not been maintained since it was abandoned and the lodges have been looted and damaged.
The site has not been maintained since it was abandoned and the lodges have been looted and damaged. -Julia Simon

We reassure you, no zombie had taken possession of the premises. The spectacle of desolation, however, was very real. “Everything had been broken and looted,” says the new owner. We even found a microwave in the pool. Abandoned overnight, the holiday village quickly became a popular spot for urbex enthusiasts. But also squatters and metal thieves. To put an end to this incessant back and forth, the mayor of Guitté even had to pull out all the stops. “We blocked the two entrances which give access to the site with a pile of earth and with stones”, underlines Géraldine Lucas.

The reopening scheduled for 2024

Pending the opening, which could take place in 2024, the site promises to be colossal. “The first two days, we started cleaning the site and we used about thirty garbage bags,” smiles Julia. In recent weeks, she has been especially active in quantifying the project and finding funding. “We initially thought we would have a million euros worth of work,” she explains. But since nothing was up to standard, I think we will be more around five to six million euros. » Lann which will remain a welcoming village for tourists in search of nature. “We are not going to destroy anything but modernize the existing structure and add other types of accommodation such as ecolodges”, underlines the forties.

In Guitté, the enthusiasm of the couple in any case delights the mayor. “Everyone here was waiting for the holiday village to be taken over,” she says. We can’t wait for it to open because it will bring jobs and tourism back to the town. »

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