THERE you were, looking at your dream home in the west, wondering how much it would cost to turn it into a cosy, comfortable hideaway - without realising that you had completey the wrong attitude.
What do you mean, put in central heating? A pine-fitted kitchen concealing modern appliances like a washing machine, a microwave? And just why do you insist on an indoor lavatory?
Excuse me, what about respect for the history, the spirit of your new rural home? Think of the owner of Mildred's Place, a 90-acre estate in Pennsylvania whose New York-based designer owner was looking for complete escape from modernity. She and some friends wanted to make the, eh, ramshackle collection of wooden farm buildings into "a living organism rather than just a weekend place for tired urbanites," according to Judith Miller, author of Great Escapes - Inspirational Homes in Stunning Locations. The designer and two artist friends were looking for somewhere "that was more than a chichi bolthole" and so "apart from converting the disused agricultural outbuildings into basic dwellings for human habitation - they charmingly call it "adaptive re-use" - their changes are relatively superficial."
The friends "sit, cook and eat" however in the unadapted part of the barn "where the residents' needs come second to those of the building and the environment". In practice, this means dodging bird and animal droppings and rain from the woodslatted roof and going to bed by candlelight because to instal electricity "would be anathema to the new owners".
Translate this into living in one of those charming unadapted stone cottages to be found off-the-beaten track from Wicklow to west Clare and you will get a flavour of what it might feel like. Those of us who have made a virtue of necessity as we struggled to raise cash to "adapt" a rural escape - who have watched water course across an indoor floor, wiped damp mould from the walls, dealt with exploding septic tanks - will probably find the Mildred model of escape more stunning than inspirational.
Fortunately, there are other truly amazing homes that represent a retreat from daily life for their owners, some by the sea, some in the mountains, in locations from Morocco to Mexico.
Some may already be familiar - the glass eyrie in a wood outside Antwerp, for example - and although there are, sadly, no Irish escapes, there is an apartment in Paris belonging to an Irishwoman already glimpsed in these pages, illustrating a section that shows how you can create an escape in the heart of the city, usually by heading for the roof.
Judith Miller's text - long on mystical inspiration, short on harsh realities - is illustrated by Simon Upton's photographs that deserve the adjective stunning: if you don't have the price of a winter sun holiday, never mind enough for your own great escape, what this coffee table book costs would be money well spent to sustain you over the dreary months of winter.
Great Escapes by Judith Miller, Ryland Peters & Small, price £30 sterling
