How It All Started
Well hello there! Good to see you here, I’m glad you took 5 minutes off you very busy schedule to read this incredibly mindblowing blog reading experience. Well – probably not mindblowing, nor an experience really…and is it incredible? You can be the judge of that!
I’m here to tell you about how this majestic venue now called Finca Al Limon started – SPOILER ALERT – it wasn’t always this majestic. As my father put it when I was a 12 year old angsty pre-teen: “it has a lot of potential. Funnily enough he would say the same thing about me and my grades at school.
I guess he’s just an optimist.
As it turns out, it did have a lot of potential, I mean look at what it has become now. It has more than tripled in size, it’s on its way to becoming fully sustainable and we’ve had the opportunity to share this beautiful space with interesting people from all over Europe who trusted us to have their wedding days, corporate events, birthdays or family reunions.
Whilst we moved from Caravan to Yurt and my moaning and crying my dad was busy building our house with a pool. We ended up building the swimming pool first as it was getting to summer and we live in the south of Spain – it’shot! Needless to say the stress levels were high and the arguments were loud but finally, in Autumn 2007 we were living in the house. I mean, half of it. Don’t get me wrong I was ECSTATIC!
But – when we moved here in Spring 2003 it was an extended lemon tree farm with a caravan, us (mum, dad, little brother and me) and our two dogs. It was not easy for me so I didn’t make it easy for them either. Like I said, I was an angsty teen with mediterranean blood…I got angry! But, in hindsight it was the most adventurous thing we had ever done as a family.
We had some wonderful times by the fire playing charades with our family and friends. My brother David could never contain his excitement and would always spoil the subject he was trying to mimic but he tried hard. I had my own bedroom where I could be miserable and isolate myself from everyone else. Many of our clients want just that, to be in a quiet space where no one will bother you.
This is easily achieved here! I slept in the bedroom now called Rhiad, My brother in Blanca and my parents in Essoirra.
So before becoming beautifully decorated, one was covered magazine advert pages (mine), the other with posters of football players (David’s) and the other was a private library (mum and dad’s). There were so many books everywhere! Where did we put them when we lived in the yurt? All remains a mystery.
A couple of months later my dad decided to upgrade us to a Yurt. If you don’t know what a yurt is, don’t worry…if you ever stay with us you will. It became one of our most requested rooms! We had everything, a big king sized bed where my dad, mum and little brother would sleep on and I slept on the sofa. I was 12 going on 13 which as it turned out was my growth spurt and the sofa started out fine but by the end of the year it became quite small.
However, we all noticed how we were slowly growing apart. This is a sad memory for me. I remember getting angry and having loud arguments but I also remember how close and supportive we were as a family. Dad also noticed and soon mum came along too. Not too long after building the house of their dreams my parents decided that it was, well, too big. So along with the fact that this area became a UNESCO protected site that needed to be preserved my parents buckled up and started to create what would become our ecolodge.
It started off with the half of the house we used to live in and the pool. People would rent for a week, enjoy it and leave it. Then my dad built the other half of the house and the next year we could host more clients. After that, he put in a jacuzzi and turned the yurt into a bedroom.
And this evolution continued, we got involved in ecological projects around Malaga and built a cane stage, and then we built two stages and then a football pitch, a new circus caravan room, two river cabins, a boat couch (yes, he took a broken boat and turned it into a sofa – true story)…and the list goes on.
At the beginning we stayed anywhere we could, friends and families houses mainly. After that we built an apartment on the north side of the land where we could be close to the clients if need be but of course with no swimming pool access. It got hard in the summer. So when the capital started to come in, my dad rented a house a few minutes away from the Finca which is definitely smaller and cosier for this crazy family of four.
This brings us to today! After living in Italy for 8 years where I would spend most of the summer months at the finca and 2 years living in Brazil, my brother’s return from his 6 month South America travels we are now all together again. And we are in it to win it!
We hope that this blog gives you a better idea of who we are and how dedicated we are to making this place the best it can be. All the team is very dedicated and loves the finca just as much as they love each other!
Everything for everyone here at the finca! Live the experience!
S.