David Kempster first met his wife Diana in a sauna but they opted for somewhere less steamy when they decided to follow their dream of a life in the sun. Seven years, two children and a menagerie later, they have renovated and sold one property and started knocking about their new home in the Portuguese seaside town of Tavira.
There was a real inevitability about Diana and I ending up in Portugal, even though we met in a sauna on the south coast of England.
For a start, Diana grew up in Lisbon. Also, I spent time in Portugal when I was younger and I loved it. So when Diana’s brother and his girlfriend moved to the Algarve we decided to follow them.
Since then we have bought property, accumulated cats and dogs and had two children. It’s fair to say we’ve put down roots in this south-western corner of Europe.
Our first encounter came in Bournemouth in the spring of 1999. It took 40 minutes of heat and the loss of several pounds before I worked up the courage to ask Diana out for a drink, and happily she said ‘yes’.
At the time I was working as a male model with a leading British agency. I was born in Philadelphia but moved to Bournemouth as a teenager and became a professional ice hockey player until injuries forced me to quit.
I then became interested in surfing, and combined my modelling career with following the surf trail. I got to see a lot of the world but was always drawn back to Europe.
Diana also grew up abroad and that connection really helped us. She went back to Britain for high school and later joined her brother’s magazine publishing company, which was based in Bournemouth.
Her brother, Richard, sold his company soon after we met and moved to Portugal. We joined him and his girlfriend, Nikki, and lived with them for nearly two years.
Diana had worked in advertising in Britain and found a job with a property magazine. I teamed up with a local builder and a friend in Britain to launch my business, The First Decking Company, and over seven years it has developed to the extent that we now supply some of the biggest resorts and tourism projects in the region and have clients as far away as Lisbon.
We decided to buy a property before Diana’s brother kicked us out, but it was difficult to find anything to suit us. We had a budget of £125,000 and we needed some land, having accumulated four dogs and four cats.
Most of the estate agencies didn’t have suitable properties but We eventually found a place a few miles inland from Faro. We needed land and a good location in the event of selling on the property. And Casa Alegria in Santa Barbara de Nexe met the criteria. With lawyer’s fees, notary charges, land registry and property tax we squeezed in at £125,000.
For that, we got just over an acre of land with two properties – an old farmhouse and a cottage. It has great views, is in the middle of beautiful countryside and is only 15 minutes from Faro airport, so the location couldn’t be better.
The estate agents, Manor Park, were really helpful, smoothing the way for us and even helping to speed things up at the town hall. It sounds like one of those television ads, but Diana was so impressed she started working for the company and a couple of years down the line she now manages their office in Tavira.
We lived in the cottage for two years and spent £35,000 on renovating the properties. The improvements we made included applying an anti-damp coating and sorting out problems with the drainage system and cesspit.
The roof was insulated and re-tiled, walls were taken out and others installed and the bathroom was redesigned. On top of that, we laid oak flooring and replaced all the doors, and outside we created a new patio.
But then we decided to move on because Diana’s job meant she was commuting to Tavira – a 40-minute drive each way – and because of the arrival last year of our second daughter, Sienna, a sister for four-year-old Sashi.
We sold our country property to a family whose children go to the local international school and who needed to be based nearby. As they wanted more space than we needed, they have continued the work and enlarged the property, so it’s good to know our project is being continued. We were sad to leave the area but Diana in particular won’t miss the travelling back and forth.
We decided on Tavira, not just because of Diana’s work, but also because we love the town. We found a new, semi-detached large townhouse on the highest hill of the town so, though we have forfeited our land we now have no renovations to do.
Having said that, no sooner had we moved in than we started to open up the basement area to give ourselves more living space – another two bedrooms and a second lounge that all open up onto the small area of garden and fabulous panoramic views of the city, river and sea beyond.
I think we would get bored if there was absolutely nothing left to do but we are desperately trying to get things finished for this summer so we can enjoy the extra space and get the garden landscaped to be able to use it with the children.
It makes sense, too, to be here for the girls. There’s a long wait to get into local primary schools, but a new international school opened up in the area last year which gives us different options. Moving to a town also means it will be easier for them to mix with their friends.
We have definitely found our home in Tavira. We love it because we can walk into town if we choose to and Tavira island and the wonderful beach is 15 minutes away if we catch the tourist boat. Faro airport is just down the road and it only takes an hour and half to get to Seville so we have the best of both worlds – we live in Portugal and have Spain on our doorstep.
