Escape from New York

“A few years ago, we couldn’t have imaged ourselves living in a small town in the mountains of Andalucía. It would have seemed about as far from our existence as you could get without leaving the western hemisphere.

Stefan and I met in New York and we were living metropolitan life to the full. He was working as a chef in a succession of the city’s top restaurants while I was selling my own line of clothing in a boutique in an up and coming neighbourhood of Brooklyn.

But as is often the way, everything changed when our son, Casim, came along. Suddenly, our tiny apartment didn’t seem like such a good place to bring up children. And when I realised I would never be able to let Casim out on his own until he was 16 the decision was effectively made: it was time to leave New York.

Stefan and I both grew up in suburbia – me in Ascot, down the road from Windsor, him in Columbus, Ohio. And the one thing we knew was that we didn’t want to go back. It was the middle of New York or the middle of nowhere. We weren’t even sure which country we wanted to live in. We thought about Goa – that’s where my mother’s family came from. But India just seemed too far from everyone.

It soon became obvious that Spain was the right place for us. I had been holidaying at my parents’ property in Marbella since I was three and spoke the language fluently, while Stefan had a huge interest in Spanish cuisine and, of course, the culture was attractive. So three years ago we left New York behind and arrived in Spain, using my parents’ apartment as a base while we thought about our future.

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Some time before leaving the States I had closed my business and had taken on work as a retail consultant. But since arriving in Spain my work has been largely linked to Stefan’s – I was ‘front-of-house’ while Stefan was chef at two very good restaurants in the Marbella area.
We had never intended to stay on the Costa del Sol, and spent almost 18 months looking for the right place to buy. We saw 140 different properties and almost signed contracts on seven, including an ex-monastery in Velez Málaga. But something was wrong with all of them.
Eventually we saw this venta, with its bar, dining room and beautiful shaded terrace overlooking the lake at Zahara de la Sierra, up in the mountains of Cádiz province. The town is small and has a hilltop castle and the nearest decent-sized settlement is Ronda, half an hour away. But this was it. We realised when we saw the property that we could really make something of it and after checking everything was in order we made a deal and took over at the beginning of 2006.
I suppose our timing could have been better. I gave birth to our daughter, Mahalia, six weeks later so it wasn’t the easiest start to life here. But we had to get on with making a living and that’s what we did.