It's like being on a permanent holiday!

For the past 31 years, I have been telling people here that we don't live to work but we work to live. And even if it is easy, we do have to make sure that we really aren't on the job 24/7.

But then, we do have the landscape to help us maintain the perspective.

What we also hear is, "well, you've been on holiday in Pfaffenbronn for the last 31 years!". That might be another way of looking at it, but actually, we don't share that opinion. We divide our work and it's our intuitive combination. I can't really say this is work and this is leisure. It can't really be separated so we just let it flow, one into the other. But those really stressful situations? We don't have them. Not that we are without problems but they're other things which concern us.




an extension of our office?



Thea and I divide our work. Whilst she does all the administration and the accounts, two things which aren't exactly my strenghts, I do the other things. Back in Holland she worked in an administrative capacity in a museum wheras I was an interior designer. Basically, we both think that if two do the same thing, it only leads to conflicts. So, I don't touch the admin.

There are 100 privately owned houses here. The total area is 5 hectars. There is a swimming pool, a tennis court, 1 hectar of forest. The houses are recorded at the land registary and the owners decide on their own interiors. Outside, we have a uniform and binding village policy.

About 10 or 12 owners actually live here as their main residence. Then there are many owners who use them asa holiday home. They come in the spring, for 2 or 3 weeks in the summer, a week in autumn and maybe for Christmas. Many come from either northern Germany or Holland. Then, there is a group of people who use it as a weekend retreat. They usually come from a radius of about 150-200km, from towns such as Karlsruhe, Stuttgart or Saarbrücken.

So, you could say, we actually have a small international community here, made up of French, Germans, Belgians, Greeks, Irish, Spaniards. And what we have begun to notice as well is that the owners have really begun to appreciate the value of pure relaxation the area provides, making them come here more often.

From our point of view, running a place like this, when we experience 100 owners, we experience 100 or even 200 different possibilities.