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MAS DE PROVENCE WILL HAVE VERY SOON A RANGE OF INFUSED
OLIVE OIL WITH PROVENCE HERBS
‘Mas De Provence’ is the perfect French Provincial shopping experience you have been looking for! French owned and operated, you will find everything for your home, from furniture to gift ware and everything in between! Our products are all the way from Provence, imported with the greatest care to give you the ultimate home ware experience. Just let us add some French to your life!
What is the signification of Mas De Provence?
A Mas (pronounced like "mahs") is a traditional farmhouse in the Provence region of France as well as in Catalonia,
where is also named "masia". A Mas was a largely self-sufficient economic unit, which could produce it own fruit,
vegetables, grain, milk, meat and even silks worms. It was constructed of local stone, with the kitchen and room for
animals on the ground floor, and bedrooms, storage places for food and often a room for raising silkworms on the
upper floor.
Not every farmhouse in Provence is a Mas.
A Mas was distinct from the other traditional kind of house in Provence, the Bastide, which was the home of a wealthy
family.
The Mas De Provence face the south to offer protection against the mistral wind coming from the north, and because of
the mistral there are no windows facing north while on all the other sides, windows are narrow to protect against the heat
of summer and cold of winter. A Mas is almost always rectangular.
The size of a Mas depend upon the wealth an number of i original occupants. From 150 square meters to over one
thousand square meters, including the barn and others structures. As the family grew larger the mas would be made
longer to accommodate them. When a Mas is small, and is occupied by a single family with a small area of land, it is
called a Mazet or Petit Mas. The Mas was always built of inexpensive local materials, stones or wood from the area.
Along the river Durance were made from river stones,those of Gordes of limestone, and those of Roussillon red stone
and clay.