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Who are we all and how did Infiniti come to be?
Let us introduce ourselves, the four of us who conceived, designed,
built, cried over and who now proudly let and manage Infiniti. We are
the Bernsteins - Ian and Brenda and the Whatmoughs - Ruth and Ian. | |
Ian and Brenda are now residents of Fuerteventura, living on Infiniti for
most of the year and in addition to our resident staff, are on hand to
personally make sure everything runs smoothly for our guests.
Ruth and Ian live in deepest Devon, managing occasional visits to
Fuerteventura, and are available by telephone or e-mail to deal with
bookings and any enquiries our guests-to-be may have.
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A personal path to Infiniti
My name is Ruth and many moons ago my husband, Ian, and
I were lucky enough to be the proud owners of a small modest bungalow,
grandly referred to as a ‘villa’, on Lanzarote.
Becoming rather disenchanted with the tour operator in charge of
letting ‘the villa’ we bravely decided to ‘go it alone’.
At home in the UK Ian had a proper job, so the task of
finding fortunate holidaymakers to fill Casa Thurian (if you haven’t
guessed, it is an anagram of Ruth and Ian) fell to your’s truly – who
was, in truth looking for a job anyway. As way of
investment we lashed out on an electric typewriter which we used to
print the master for a rather primitive folded A4 brochure which we
took to a photocopier and then adorned with sticky photographs.
An old folder, decorated pessimistically, but brightly, with a
rainbow was used for notes and the even older coffee table in the hall
housed the telephone and became ‘the office’.
A year or so later we ventured onto Fuerteventura – that dusty,
sandy island just a short ferry sail from Lanzarote. We bought a small
villa there too – and before we knew it, I was VERY busy!
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The Canary Island of Foo - erty ‚ What?
(a compilation of several articles written by Ruth over the years)
Do you know that Fuerteventura is one of the Canary Islands - and,
if you do, can you say it? Even today, just mention the Canary Islands
to anyone and most will immediately say - 'oh, yes, you mean Tenerife'.
For centuries only a handful of adventurous travellers visited
Fuerteventura and until about fifteen years ago most of us had never
heard of the island and even fewer of us could pronounce its name.
Little is known of the ancient history of the Canaries, but one
theory is that the Guanches, the earliest known inhabitants of the
islands were descended from the Berbers of North Africa, a fair skinned
race. Occasionally Guanche features can still be seen in the
locals, although most of them were murdered by marauding Spaniards in
the 15th century.
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| Together
'we four' have listened to the opinions of hundreds of guests over the
years we have been involved in Fuerteventura and now that we have all
spent time on 'Infiniti' we are sure that our guests, like ourselves,
will appreciate all the ideas and the love which went into the design
of the unusual apartments and villas which are our 'dream'. | |
There
was a handful of other private owners on Fuerteventura and many had no
means of finding lets to bring in an income whilst they were not using
their apartment or villa.
Eventually
Ian’s dream of being made redundant from his day job came to pass and
he joined me at home in our new venture. Our portfolio grew and grew
and with it the office spread to fill 2 bedrooms, the kitchen and parts
of the living room. We both worked very hard for many years, making
lots of lovely friends along the way and enjoying (almost) every minute
of it. Eventually
we decided that a change was called for and we sold our villas and the
business and became country bumpkins in deepest Devon. All went to plan
for a year or so ‚ radishes and brussells in the garden, sort of thing
- and then the Fuerteventura "bug" struck again! Two lovely people who
had owned one of the apartments in our portfolio said that they would
love to live on the island. Their names are Ian (yes, another one!) and
Brenda and they were looking for partners‚ to join them in "we knew not
what!" | |
Today
the "majoreros", or locals, speak a dialect of Spanish and, although
not in the European Union, are still ruled by Spain, even though Madrid
is further away than the Shetlands are from London.
The Canarian archipelago is made up of numerous islands and islets.
All are of volcanic origin, some are almost subtropical
and today they export tropical fruits, some have plants and creatures
indigenous to that island, some spurt fire from the earth, some have
snow-capped mountains, some have barren lunar landscapes, some have
black gritty beaches and some have vast expanses of spectacular white
sandy beaches which are bathed in sunshine all year.
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| Ruth
and Ian's experience of building a holiday company and the combined
experience gained by all four of us in owning property on the island
have been invaluable in helping us to create a unique venue - not a
million miles from the United Kingdom, yet aptly named Infiniti. | |
So,
we bought a plot of land in Corralejo, near the then outskirts of the
town, not too far from all the amenities but close enough to both the
town and National Park beaches.
An architect more used to
Marbella than Fuerteventura was employed. His brief was to
produce a design more interesting than the almost universal "little
square boxes" of Corralejo. All would enjoy many luxury
features not normally found with privately owned accommodation.
To cut a long story short, that was the beginning of
the evolution of our joint venture, the group of apartments and villas
designed by ourselves and known as Infiniti ‚ more aptly named than any
of us realised at the time. From conception to completion
our venture took six long years. Along the way there were
buckets of sweat and tears, much heartache, an infinite number of
sleepless nights, loss of tempers, loss of hope and, in some cases,
loss of hair!!! The end often seemed to literally be
‚beyond infinity‚! Fortunately the end was just a little
short of infinity and the four of us eventually saw completion of what
we think is the best small group of apartments and villas on the island.
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Fuerteventura, sometimes referred to as
"an oasis in the desert of civilisation" is the second largest of the
seven main islands and is sheltered from the Atlantic weather by being
the closest to the African coast. Visitors from England's "green and
pleasant land" tend to find Fuerteventura's landscape somewhat barren
and forget that the 'green and pleasant' which they have just left
behind means lots of rain! On closer inspection the barren landscape is
full of interest and contrasts and plays host to goats, camels, rare
birds and lovely cheeky little chipmunks. Inland there are
agricultural villages, nestling in small oasises between the rounded
mountains and on the coast there are small fishing villages, rocky
outcrops and warm turquoise ocean which wraps around miles of pale soft
sand.
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