Maybe it was one of those things where the peasants had fun and then the flax merchants saw their villages and thought that if only they could redo the thatch roofs they'd have a great little pied-a-terr, thus driving rents up and the peasants out.

Not too long after unscrupulous developers renamed the village huts Haut Toit -- and used sub prime loans backed up by tulips to finance them with nothing down.