La Maison de la Rose is a three-story house (plus basement) built in 1906. The original owners were wealthy merchants in Moissac and owned, among other things, the Grand Bazar department store in the centre of the town (where the small Intermarche supermarket now stands on the north-west corner of the market square). As such, the house had a Paris architect and it seems that no expense was spared in the original construction. Some of the features and the finish were quite advanced for a house of that era.

The house has two street frontages. The main (official) address is 71 Rue Gambetta, and this street is the main entrance to Moissac from the west. Because of the nature of this entrance road, the Moissac Mairie was engaging in a major rehabilitation project for the road (and most other entrance roads to Moissac from other directions) under the title of OPAH. Under this program, financial assistance was available for renovations to facades that retain the heritage character of the entrance roads. While we may not apply for this financial assistance, it does mean that there will be some restrictions on what we can do in the renovation for any feature that is visible from the road (e.g. facade, shutters, windows, colours etc). That's fine with us, since most of the renovation work will take place on the interior of the building. From the outside it will look old; from the inside it will look much newer.

The street view along Rue Gambetta has not changed much over the last century, apart from the means of transport, as can be seen by the photo below from early last century and the painting of the same scene in 2013 (done by our good friend, Shirley Peters). La Maison de la Rose at 71 Rue Gambetta is the house on the right with two chimneys, just above the horse in the old photo.