how it was made

Our story begins with a WhatsApp group from Nick’s completely unknown family from southern Italy. Around thirty nieces and nephews live in Bari. Nick’s dad was born in Bari and, after a detour to Germany, fell in love and got maried. They emigrated im Venezuela and had two boys. And one of them is Nick and I’m Anja. The group chat really took off at Christmas and so we decided to spend our autumn holiday in Apulia in 2018 and get to know part of the unknown family in Bari.
And that’s how it all began. The two weeks were wonderful. The food, the wine (I didn’t realise that Apulian wine was so good), the people and the many small, enchanting towns and cities.

If everything is going really well in your life, it’s time to try something new. I am firmly convinced of that. That a break is best achieved when life is smiling and everything is going well.
In February 2019, we took a week to look at the properties we found online in Puglia.
Our house wasn’t my first love, but with the viewing and the growing imagination of what the ageing villa could become, the decision in favour of this property was already made on the plane to Hamburg –
We’ re going to do it.

In January 2020, we sold our old house, packed everything up and gave up our old jobs.
We stowed our belongings in the truck we had bought and put the three dogs in the family car. So off we went to the south.
We were lovingly welcomed by the new owners, stowed away our old life in the house we had rented in Lecce for the transition period and were full of anticipation to finally sign the purchase contract.
Until the bank finally had all the papers together, we let off steam on the property of our future life.
Restructuring 70000 square metres is an incredible task. Unfortunately, nothing was done here for many years.
And then came COVID, Italy collapsed, especially emotionally. Nothing worked anymore, even for the bank. Two days before the notary appointment was due to take place, everything collapsed. The large number of deaths in northern Italy also caused the banks to stop issuing loans.
We continued to work in the garden that didn’t yet belong to us. Seven days a week, ten to twelve hours a day.
I’ll cut the story short here. We were only able and allowed to buy two years later.
The two years of waiting and hoping brought us to the brink of emotional exhaustion.

At the end of September 2021, the dream came true after all and we bought.
Due to the now difficult situation with the seller, we were only then able to sort looking for builders. Nick and I simply started gutting the 1000 square metres. The tiles had to come down in eight huge bathrooms and all the cast-iron radiators had to be removed. Forty years ago, a carpenter invested a lot of time in fitting all the windows and doors with wood. Now everything had to be removed.
After three months, the first workmen arrived and the house was empty, completely gutted.
When I look at the photos from that time. I can’t believe what we did. I absolutely have to tell you about our incredible friends. Unbelievable, because they spent their “holiday” with us three times.
Holidays in inverted commas, because they helped out so much. So it has also become a bit of their project.
The Italians love to talk and talk. In the beginning. I attended the construction meetings, but talking without starting. talking without coming to a conclusion drove me crazy. Nobody listens. you don’t get a word in between.
Nick mastered this task incredibly well. Just on the phone, running here, looking there, mediating there, solving problems where there was supposedly no solution.

What you always hear from the Italian is “tranquillo” (calm) and “non ti preoccupare” (don’t  worry), but I think the one we heard the most was “non possibile” (impossible).
I did other work during that time: cutting Lecceser stone (for months), grouting and so on.
Sometimes I was really jealous of Nick, who only started the physical work at three o’clock, on other hand I could see very clearly how stressed and annoyed and often desperate he was, I couldn’t have done his job.
August is the ” ferragosto” summer holidays in Italy – nothing works there! One of the jobs we had to do until the workmen returned was to sand down the house by hand. The two of us and our employee sanded and washed the first side of the house at thirty-eight degrees. The sanding dust had to be removed before we could paint. We reached our physical limits. And the head also plays a role, a house usually consists of four sides. I hated it at some point. The dust is in every pore of your skin and it was impossible for all three of us to work in these temperatures with breathing masks. After a week, the first side was finished, leaving three more to go.

One of the nice moments during construction is when holes are closed, floors are poured and then the feeling arises that we have almost done it. We were always surprised to hear friends and family say “oh there’s still so much missing”.
We were always so happy when something was finished or seemed close to being finished. It’s an incredibly exciting experience when the design slowly comes together. My job was to select and put together everything that makes up the villa today. Creating rooms, choosing furniture and matching colours.
Nick and I complemented each other perfectly in this respect. Nick the technician and I the creative one –
a dream team.

Yes, and sometimes we had a real row. The mental and physical strain was enormous and so the sparks flew.
It’s a wonderful experience that when one of us has had a bad day, the other has built him up again.
I would like to thank Nick for his incredibly great job. his stamina and what he has achieved.
Finally, we are looking forward to our new task: being hosts. Living our dream with our guests. We are looking forward to many nice guests.

Wow, we wouldn’t have thought it, our wishes and hopes are now a reality. What am I talking about?
– Of our guests.
They are great. What a pleasure for Nick and me to have such satisfied and happy guests.
It feels like we can pass on our dream.
What we had to learn? That our beds are too good, nobody gets out of them and so we stand and wait with breakfast. But that’s exactly how it has to be and our plan has worked.
I cook a different menu every evening (not that I ever learnt that). And I could never have imagined such clean plates from such happy guests. My new passion. And it’s so much fun.
To summarise, we work an incredible amount, but we get so much great feedback in return.

The beginning was so hard. Everything was ready – everything was fine.
But no bookings because we had no reviews and therefore no guests. What a vicious circle.
But the first guests somehow found us and were delighted.
After three months, we still get excited every time new guests arrive. But the first smile from them, the first wow, relieves any tension in us.
We are looking forward to many new wonderful experiences as hosts.