Ten years later, the “old hippie”, a building of the house has, still attracts all the eyes

“Influencer? I don’t really like the word. Inspiring, it suits me better. “Seated in the vast living room of his famous house A, in Lusignac, near Ribérac, in the west of the Dordogne, Elizabeth Faure,” old hippie “(in her own words) of 76 years, is told. This “barracks” that she imagined and built from A to Z, from large wooden triangles and “for 40,000 bullets”, earned the old architect a notoriety that she did not really imagine or desired. First there was the documentary film made during the site by Morgane Launay, the starting point for a website and a community eager for advice and sharing of experiences. There will also be a comic strip, being created and expected for 2026.

“I have the impression of having already said everything, told everything about this story,” warns the septuagenarian in a lumberjack shirt, between two puffs of cigarettes. But then, who is this funny “chick”, as she says? “He’s a whole, a necessary model of a strong woman who breaks the codes,” says Morgane Launay, his youngest of almost 40 years. The septuagenarian dreams of her canteen on a boat by Paul Watson, at war with the whale hunting, or downright “killer to hit the bad guys”.

“She has a lot of humor and she likes to shock, not to hurt, rather to shake up ideas. Feminism defines it, but it is an activist in the broad sense, against poor housing, for the animal cause, ecology, ”shirts Amber Chatelain. This other young woman is preparing a watercolor comic book with Elizabeth Faure.

Born in Morocco

To approach the woman behind the house, you must surely go back to childhood, their happiness and pain. “The house is radically feminist. In fact, I was born a feminist, ”confirms the interested party. It is in Morocco that Elizabeth Faure was born. “My father was doing medical research and the fatmas raised me, it’s great to start life like that, in the love of women. And then we arrived in France. First in Ghien [dans le Loiret, NDLR]then in Annemasse [en Haute-Savoie]. »

The story resumes: “I hated that, because we were hated, that we were treated with colonists. School, at first it was hell. My little sister was stoned by the students and under the eyes of the mistresses. I started to scarify myself because I thought I was making a nightmare, that I was going to wake up. The little girl escapes in “her life as a kid”, she likes to make rafts.

“Make houses for the poor”

Bac in pocket, to make her dream of “making houses for the poor”, the future building takes the tangent. She rewinds: “I thought I was archi in Florence, because I was talking about Italian and I am in love with this city. But I would have been the only woman in school, and that was not possible. In short, alone and “with 150 balls”, she “breaks in London”. In the effervescence of London swinging, at the turn of the sixties and seventies, she combines lessons and small jobs. “I was puffing while enjoying the cupcakes served with the tea at work. I never had a money. »»

“In fact, the money has almost always been invisible in my life,” laughs Elizabeth Faure. When I started, in the middle of apartheid, I refused to make a house for a South African diamonder. And I didn’t make money with my house either [les plans sont accessibles gratuitement, NDLR]. I am at least old age. There, I just get afloat after the last breakdown of my car. I always find solutions and I am free, so I feel very rich. »»

Community life

“Always Cash”, she confessors to have “tried all drugs” and “have always had a guy, with lovers and lovers”. On the benches of the Archi school, the little “Frenchie” meets the father of her daughter, born in 1974. And it was with them that she discovered the Dordogne: “We landed in 1977. At the time, the English bought the ruined houses. We restored a hundred. We lived in community in Vanxains, it was nice … “In 1982, she left in London with her child, turned the page on architecture and chained food jobs:” There was no more creativity, I was fed up. »»

After New York and Parisian parentheses, she finally returns to put her luggage in Périgord. “My ex-New York member bought me a house here. I took six years to sell it, but it fell well: the land here in Lusignac, was not on sale. Everything was unlocked at the same time. “Everything”, hear the adventure of the now famous house in A.

Meetoo and les machos

“Without farting it, I saw it a bit like a witness house,” poses Elizabeth Faure. If it had only been for me, I would not have done 181 m². I built this barrack so that people see it, that they see that a girl of 65 brooms can do it, that we can get there without many means but doing things yourself. »»

Followed during the few months of the site by the camera of Morgane Launay, the girl in question digs the foundations by listening to the Rossignol sing. She builds the pillars, installs the septic tank, “finds a family” by mobilizing who wants to give her a hand to assemble and raise the wooden frame of her future home. She sometimes gets tired, but no doubt, plumbing in bras and tames the electrical installation.

In 2013, the architect-builder moved. In 2016, the film “La Maison A” was released. Almost ten years later, Élizabeth Faure thinks she received thousands of people at home (1). “She was invaded, that’s why we made the tutorials, so that people find the answers to their questions,” recalls Morgane Launay.

The houses have pushed in the Lusignac subdivision and throughout France. That of “the old hippie” is still not quite finished, “for lack of wheat”, but “it is not very serious” for her. “There was Metoo and that is more important than everything else. It is time for the machos to let us live. »Did you say feminist?

(1) Elizabeth Faure no longer receives visits.