Armed with their dreams and a check list for their perfect French property, Steve and Ann Jordan had no idea how an informationgathering trip to the French Property Exhibition in London would change their lives forever.

Six years on, the couple are just coming to the end of their fifth season as the proud owners of the Auberge de la Salvetat outside the village of Cadouin in Dordogne. When I met up with Steve on a sunny autumn morning, it was only days away from the end of a long season yet his enthusiasm didn’t seem to have waned. This was all the more impressive as I know he was up until the early hours serving diners in the hotel’s restaurant, including a party of 37 celebrating a birthday.

Of course, you could argue that, as owner and front man of a 14-bedroom, 3-star hotel and restaurant, it’s his duty to be polite, but Steve seems to take genuine pleasure in the small details of his new career. I wondered how this ex-engineer from south Staffordshire ended up running a sizeable establishment in rural Dordogne with his wife Ann when many couples would be looking forward to a restful retirement.

‘We were living in the UK, running a family business, when Ann, a teacher, contracted breast cancer,’ explains Steve. ‘After her recovery we began to think about a change of lifestyle. The idea of running a B&B struck when we were on holiday in the Scilly Isles; we saw a business for sale and fell in love with it.’ The B&B was located on St Agnes, an island just 1 mile wide and with a population of around 72. Charming though it was, it soon became apparent that the island’s isolated location would rule out regular visits from friends and family – a high priority for the Jordans, who have two sons.

Language skills
It was back to the drawing board for Steve and Ann, who were now looking beyond the UK. ‘We felt that if we were going to do something in the hotel trade overseas we needed to have a grasp of the language,’ explains Steve, ‘and if we had any language skills, it was French.’ Having holidayed in France frequently over the years, the Jordans were familiar with all corners of France, including the Pyrenees, the Alps and Brittany, so France felt like the natural choice for a new life abroad.

Armed with a check list for their perfect property, Steve and Ann attended one of the French Property Exhibitions in London and began amassing information. With ease of access still at the fore, they decided that southwest France was the best place for them. ‘The southwest gave us the best combination of weather, accessibility and scenery – it ticked most of the boxes,’ says Steve. ‘Between the various lowcost airlines you can reach an awful lot of southwest France, so we felt that we wouldn’t be isolated from friends and family in the UK.’

With this in mind Steve, 57, and Ann, 50, began to search the internet for potential properties to view. Searching for an established business for sale meant that there was a wealth of information available online. ‘It was Ann who found La Salvetat on the internet. We were able to research the key features, such as number of rooms, before we even came to see it.’

In February 2003, the Jordans came to France to view properties. Despite having done their research, Steve found that the reality of some of the properties didn’t quite live up to the estate agent’s promises and what you see on the internet isn’t always what you get. Happily, the Auberge de la Salvetat was exactly what they were looking for. Set away from the village, amid the Dordogne landscape, the 14-room hotel and restaurant is set in 44 acres of grounds. With living quarters in the form of a fourteenth-century presbytery on site – including two studios for visiting family members – it was everything the Jordans were after.

Buying process
By late spring of 2003 the couple had put in an offer for the hotel and were waiting patiently as wheels of the buying process slowly turned. Steve remarks that it was a straightforward procedure, attributing this to the fact that he found a legal firm with an English-speaking solicitor, a factor that he is convinced was key to a smooth purchase. ‘If I was offering advice to anyone,’ he says, ‘it would be to find a firm with bilingual capability on the team. It will help you understand what you’re getting into and how the system works.’ The Jordans finally moved to France to start their new adventure in December.

‘We moved over just before Christmas,’ recalls Steve, ‘but the hotel was closed for the winter, so we had from January to March to get ready for opening.’ When I enquire whether it was a stressful time, Steve gives a hearty laugh. ‘Well, I wasn’t overweight anyway but during that period of time I lost two stone! Not so much from stress but from the sheer amount of work to do. We had to get the drains up to standard, there were no gutters on the roofs, the rooms needed sorting out, the garden needed an overhaul; there was a lot of physical stuff to do!’

As well as the labour that Ann and Steve had anticipated, there was a raft of unexpected problems that needed addressing before the hotel could reopen. ‘The electricians came for three days and stayed five weeks,’ chuckles Steve, ‘and although we thought we were inheriting a sous-chef and some staff, when we got here there was no-one at all so we had to recruit new employees.’

Although Steve had run a business in the UK, the particular demands of employing people in France led to him taking the sensible decision to hand over the responsibility to a more experienced party. ‘One of the first things we did was to find an accounting firm that dealt with similar hospitality businesses. They take care of all our payroll issues and supply us with contracts, so it’s all taken care of.’ With much of the bureaucracy out of the way Steve says the biggest challenge is balancing the unpredictable demands of a hotel and restaurant. ‘We don’t know how many people will be sitting down to eat tonight,’ he says. ‘But with the French system of employment contracts, you have to give people fixed hours and fixed contracts. It’s difficult to balance the fixed nature of employment law with the unpredictable aspect of the client side but I think we’re getting better at it.’

Champagne draw
I ponder whether, after five years, it’s now time for Steve and Ann to rest on their laurels and let the business look after itself; after all they have recently been included in Alistair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay series and have been chosen as a stopover by activity holiday company Inntravel which organises holidays for walkers. Steve is quick to put me right. ‘Marketing is crucial; you have to work at it all of the time.’ Ann takes care of the promotions, which include discounts in the off-peak seasons for repeat restaurant bookings and a monthly champagne draw.

So what’s next for Steve? He’s spending the winter doing odd jobs around La Salvetat in preparation for the start of the season in March 2009; he’ll also take the opportunity to visit the UK over winter to see friends and family. And in the long term, have Steve and Ann got grand plans for La Salvetat? ‘We haven’t got big plans as such,’ he says. ‘The place is as big as we want it to be; we’re happy to stay as a 3-star hotel so we can continue to have an air of informality. What we will do is develop the restaurant; each year we feel we’re getting better so with Ann’s hands-on involvement in the kitchen we’ll keep striving to develop the food.’ It’s this along with the warmth of the welcome and the beauty of the Dordogne countryside that will keep people coming back for more