Creative director Simon Amster, 55, and his wife TV executive Asha, 48 (pictured) bought the five-bed hideaway in the village of Sauveterre-de-Bearn near Biarritz for just 50,000 euros.
The writer and his wife bought Tregiffian Cottage in St Buryan, near Penzance, in the late 1960s. It has now gone on the market for the first time in 60 years.