Yves Plançon, a French property developer who calls himself a “collector of houses”, was searching for a house in Brussels when he came across Villa Gaverzicht for sale in the province of Waregem, west of the Belgian capital. “When I discovered this place, I didn’t hesitate for a second,” he says.
The house, built by a little-known Belgian architect called Gentiel Van Eeckhoutte in 1939, had been empty for three years after his widow died in her 90s. “I can understand why she lived here so long. It is a very comfortable place to grow old in,” Plançon says. Indeed, with all those semicircular shapes, railings and round windows which mimic a ship’s portholes, it looks like a luxury liner.
