It was in 1977 that the Catholic Diocese of Agen separated from the building offered in 1975 by Madame de Nombel, heiress of Henri and Alice de Lartigue who had bought it in 1913. Indeed, it was then a few years after the law of separation of Church and State and this family – very Catholic – had acquired several properties in Clairac to house the priests and parish activities. Previously, the owner had been Jeanne Ferrand, a nun who had established a denominational school there, an activity that continued throughout the 20th century. It was in 1886 that the latter had bought it from the municipality which had abandoned the premises – seat of the town hall since the Revolution – in order to join the new town hall built by the architect Albert Courau. The town hall had been installed here since a royal decree of 1818 had authorized the municipality to buy this construction which had belonged since the 2 floréal of the year XI to the notary Antoine Roussel. In the revolutionary turmoil, this skilful man had bought the Grossolles de Flamarens mansion (owners notably of the Château de Buzet, but also in Clairac of the “château” or the property of the Auxides); these properties had come to them from the Sellier (nephews of the abbot Gérard Roussel), then from the Toulouse inhabitants Guillermin.
Over the years, the two wings of the house have undergone many transformations, particularly under the Restoration to accommodate the activities of the town hall; the work was notably carried out by the Clairacais: the builder Jean Durand, the carpenter Pierre Ferré, the locksmith Delmas. It was the latter who made the iron gate of the stone porch. It should be noted that the entablature (or crowning) of the latter was removed a few years ago, as the stones began to unseal. Restoration would allow this distinguished building to regain some of its former splendour.
Colonel Macon Gray Williams (Warsaw, Alaska 1901-Clairac 1996), an American from Ohio who trained as an architect and served in the army during the Second World War, moved to Clairac in the early 1960s with his French wife, Suzanne Voisin (who died in 2012), whom he met when she was a nurse at the Châteauroux air base where he was a colonel. Previously, as a member of the US Air Force, he had served with the Allied Forces in Wiesbaden. Among his many hobbies, he also indulged in the art of ceramics and drawing; anyone who passed his house on the way down to the beach could take a look through the glass roof of his studio. Fascinated by Clairac's vernacular architecture, he devoted himself to the restoration of the house he had bought in rue Puzoque; for several years, he was seen on his scaffolding, instruments in hand, knocking down the old plaster and filling in the brick half-timbering.
