Menorca Renovation: The Big Reveal!

I am SO over the moon to be able to finally share these pictures with you! It has been a real labour of love over the last six months (and even more so over the last six weeks), but we really are almost there now, with only a few more finishing touches to put in place.

To give a little bit of background, Patrick and I have always adored Spain and the Balearic Islands – as a child my parents had an apartment in Puerto Pollensa, so we visited every summer from when I was tiny. Some of my earliest memories are of summer living on the Pine Walk there. Patrick grew up in Madrid and when we first met we lived together in Mallorca for three years – it was also where our love and eventually business in property started, so all in all a very special place for us.

Whilst living in Mallorca we would spend a lot of time in Ibiza and Formentera, but for some reason had never ventured across to Menorca, even though we heard time and time again how beautiful it was. A few years ago, we finally decided to change that – we came over in May 2017 to explore, with the idea that we might invest in a property here that would ultimately be a business venture to rent through the summer months, but that we would use in the quieter season and therefore be able to get our Balearic fix each year :)

To say it was love at first site would be an understatement – we were instantly bowled over by its natural beauty and it felt so authentic and unspoilt. Like a mixture of the best bits of all the other Balearic Islands and in our second trip over a month later we found this house.

We loved the countryside location, the fact it had such amazing views (this is quite rare in Menorca as it’s a relatively flat island), but that it was also so close to Mahon, the marina there and lots and lots of amazing cafes, shops and restaurants. That’s not to mention beaches too – on this part of the island there are so many beautiful bays within 10/15 minutes’ drive, but I will save all that for another blog post.

The house was built in the 1990s, what the locals would call a villa and not what we had expected to buy. We are both huge fans of history and architecture and expected to buy either a crumbling old house in the city or a rustic finca in need of serious TLC, but this house captured us the moment we arrived with the view, the layout and the amazing pool.

In terms of renovating, we have changed everything internally and most things externally too – it was just a little dated throughout, I will share the before pictures on another blog post in future too. For the design I initially found it challenging to be inspired…I couldn’t fill it with lovely old furniture and draped linen, as it wasn’t traditional enough for that look.

I always felt that the front of the house, when looking over the swimming pool, had potential to be quite Palm Springs/Slim Aarons – I think that was one of the things that drew us to it – the beautiful bougainvillea climbing towards the balconies and the three symmetrical arches, so I think my loose inspiration came from that. Palm Springs in the 60s or 70s – decadence, elegance; almost as if you could lose yourself in a Slim Aarons print!

And so here we are – the mostly finished version! There are still rooms in the house that we haven’t managed to style and photograph, but we will do this week. The amazing outside bar is also awaiting a few finishing touches, so I will also share more pictures of that when I have them, but for now here it is – I hope you like it as much as we do! As you know it’s available to rent and here is the link with all details – we will be offering 10% off all bookings for June 2019 (which is already as little as £49 per person per night with 10 of you sharing!) and also we will offer the first two blog readers/Instagram followers 10% of their bookings any time later this year or next, so if you are interested do get in touch quickly!

I will be sharing a much more detailed blog post of the interiors in the next few weeks, with all suppliers and shoppable links wherever possible, so watch this space for that too. Have a lovely rest of Bank Holiday weekend!

Laura x