The Secret Garden

Zvonka opened the huge iron gate and stepped into the courtyard. Running Man (RM) followed. I just stood there, rooted in amazement at what I was seeing. Zvonka looked back at me and grinned at my wide eyes and gaping mouth. RM took a few steps back to take my arm, pulling me gently inside.

The courtyard was green and flowered, wild and beautiful. My thoughts flew instantly to a long-ago-read book, The Secret Garden. I knew I was only a few yards away from the neighbors and yet I felt like I was totally alone once I passed through the gate. Although the day was quite warm the temperature dropped perceptively inside the gate. Zvonka walked toward a table, dropped her purse on it and walked toward the house. The table was on the right side of the courtyard, beneath one of the fig trees. Just to the left was an arbor made of rusted pipes and blanketed with grape vines.

 

Other than the sound of RM and Zvonka speaking in Slovene as she unlocked the front door and disappeared inside, the only sounds I heard were bees buzzing among the vines and flowers and the intermittent scuttling sounds of lizards on the stone walls. I felt at peace and at home.

Stucco on the front of the two-story farmhouse had fallen away, exposing its original stone facade in many places.  There was a piece of green corrugated plastic over the front door, held aloft by rusted metal arms and marring the rustic beauty of the structure.

To my left was an old stone shed topped with a collapsing tile roof but hidden and cooled beneath the canopy of yet another fig tree. But not even the tree could hide the large, unsightly metal barrel and long gutter, positioned to capture rainwater for the garden.

Between the shed and the front door was a beautiful arched doorway with a loft door above it. I walked closer to take a look and saw something etched in the concrete arch above the door. It was "1673," the year of the founding of this property. I hadn't just stepped into a secret garden. I had stepped back in time. And to someone whose country is only 230-some years old, it was hard to imagine owning a property more than 330 years old.

 

 Zvonka and RM emerged from the house.

"Are you going to spend the day in the garden, or do you want to see the house?" RM teased.

I was greeted by the sight of a green toilet and a bidet as I entered the house. I was standing in an entry hall which was consumed by a huge, unattractive but no doubt functional cabinet/closet/coat hanger monstrosity that covered the entire left wall. The blue-tiled bathroom was directly in front of me with the door open. I had stepped out of Old World Europe and directly into Yugoslavian Communism without missing a beat.

The next room was the dining room, dominated on one side by a daybed and on the other by a cast iron and enamel stove used for heating and for cooking. The room was bright with a large window that looked into the courtyard. 

Opposite the window was a massive and, frankly, hideous cabinet unit with a small television set tucked away on a shelf. The TV and daybed used as part of the seating at the kitchen table indicated to me that someone spent a lot of time in this room. 

A doorway led to a tiny kitchenette with a small refrigerator, a short enamel and cast iron farm sink and a tiny four-burner stove. I felt very tall as I entered that room, like I was walking into the kitchen of a child's playhouse rather than one used by adults. The single water pipe, added more than 100 years after the house was built, was just slapped on the wall like an afterthought, running up into the little water heater mounted on the wall. 

But it was there that I discovered a treasure. Beneath a set of wall cabinets hanging precariously from the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom, and covered up by a countertop freezer unit and some random assortment of dishes was a beautiful wooden dresser with a white marble top. It had been cobbled over the years with unattractive hardware but as someone who has refinished furniture before, I relished restoring it to its original state and putting it in a bedroom where it belonged.

"Does any of the furniture come with the place?" I asked. RM translated to Zvonka who replied to him.

"She says it all comes with it."

Not much of a selling point, I thought, except for pieces of furniture like this one. Maybe I would find more treasures in the house.

The "rest of the house" comprised two large rooms, one set up as kind of a living room and the other as a bedroom. The living room, or "dayroom," as the Europeans call it, featured Pepto-Bismol-pink walls, gold drapes and furniture upholstered in red. Not exactly easy on the eyes. The entry and bathroom had tile floors, but the rest of the house was covered in a dated gold vinyl. All in all, this house had five daybeds and a rather eclectic collection of artwork on the walls, ranging from an Asian foil print and a large lighted metal spider on a metal web to an antique framed print of Rubenesque women and a poster featuring a photo of kittens. It also had many more pieces of furniture that would have to go or be entirely overhauled so they would be unrecognizable from their original state. 

But I was looking at the house, not its furnishings, although I must admit it was a little difficult to not be distracted by the latter. All of the windows were set back nearly two feet because of the thick stone walls. Good spots for cozy window seats.  A stone wall separated the kitchen/dining room from the dayroom. All of the other walls were cardboard covered with mismatched and patched wallpaper. I was undaunted by the changeable.

Zvonka was beckoning us to follow her up some rather steep stairs behind a doorway in the dayroom. The attic had magnificent stone walls, huge exposed beams and was filled with "stuff." It was exactly what I'd envisioned. Here, I would build my retreat -- a bedroom and bathroom, sitting area, office and sewing/craft area. I would have plenty of space. The attic ran the entire length of the living space below. 

I might be able to turn the existing bedroom into two rooms, but the hike to the only bathroom would be a negative. Where would I put the guestrooms? Perhaps they would have to be in the attic. My mind was buzzing. 

Naturally, I wasn't quiet the whole time I was walking through the house. I was constantly firing questions about the roof and heating and water and so forth in English to RM who was translating them into Slovene for Zvonka then translating her answers back to me in English. His head must have been moving back and forth like someone watching a tennis match.

"How much did she say this property is?" I asked RM.

"Ninety-eight thousand," he said.

"Can't be. It must be 198,000 Euros," I said.

RM asked Zvonka something in Slovene and she responded, shaking her head and smiling.

"No, it's 98," he said.

Based on all of the other properties I'd seen, I couldn't believe the price of this one. And there was more to see. I followed Zvonka back down the stairs with a huge, stupid grin on my face. I didn't know what else we were going to see, but I couldn't wait to see it.

We walked back outside and into the secret garden. Zvonka led us to the arched doorway where she turned a key in the rusty padlock, and pushed open one of the two doors. I found myself standing in a huge, open space with concrete floors, stone walls, a long trough of firewood and myriad items from furniture to tools to trash. Here is where I would put the guestrooms with private bathrooms. Zvonka pointed to a ladder stuck up through a trap door in the beamed ceiling. RM climbed it first and I followed. The second floor had the same footprint as the ground floor but the pitched roof was high with exposed beams just as the attic in the house was. Enough room for two more rooms and bathrooms. I couldn't believe it. This was the space I had been wanting to find.

Zvonka wasn't done yet. She explained to RM that Goce had more than 100 wine cellars and this house possessed one of them. We crossed the courtyard to the opposite side near the palm tree, then walked down stone steps to the cellar door. The cellar had a dirt floor, packed as hard as concrete. A massive antique wine press covered one wall and a few old oak casks were laid on stone, spigots down for filling. There was a piece of plastic siding covering what appeared to be a doorway. RM pushed and pulled and loosened the siding, laying it down on the floor. Beyond it lay one of the Goce's famous wine cellars with stone walls and vaulted stone ceilings. Even in the dim light, I could see how beautiful this ancient cellar was, and I could imagine holding wine tastings in it for my guests. Their laughter echoed in my mind.
 
Zvonka then walked across the room and opened a set of steel doors, letting sunlight spill into the cellar. RM and I followed her outside. I blinked repeatedly, letting my eyes adjust to the brightness. I stopped suddenly, my eyes widening in wonder. Not even the garden or the house had stunned me like this. It was unbelievable.

The Search Continues

The next week and a half was a blur of properties located in the western region of Slovenia. Zvonka showed me several of them. Another agent, whom Running Man (RM) had heard about, had some different homes so we spent time with him as well. The houses ranged from the updated and renovated to the crumbling and decrepit, and the condition of them wasn't necessarily relevant to the asking price.

The newest agent showed me one property that was huge but had no land and no view from its location in the middle of a village called "Pri Peci" which means, "near the stove." The home in Pri Peci (pronounced pree-peh-chee) was owned by a hermit and the agent warned me that he could talk to him but no one else really could. He had been known to become slightly violent around unannounced strangers. But since he had no phone, the agent would have to just go in first to find out whether or not he was willing to let us see the place.
 
When we arrived at the house, the courtyard was overgrown and the house filthy and littered with junk strewn everywhere. I couldn't believe someone actually lived there. The owner, a Slovene who had reportedly gone AWOL from the French Foreign Legion, was huddled down in a lower room of the huge house where he had some relief from the hot summer temperatures. I caught a glimpse of a man in a tattered bathrobe holding a cup of something. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of his cave-like surroundings, I noticed his hair was sticking up in all directions and his dark eyes had the haunted look of a caged wild animal. I was most surprised at how much younger he was than I had thought he would be. The agent was trying to sell the man's home so he could help him buy an apartment in town where he could be cared for. Thank goodness someone was trying to look out for this poor soul; however, I wouldn't be the one to make the purchase. Although the size of the house and attached barns was enormous, I knew that just the cleaning of them would be a Herculean task. I could attempt to describe the filth but won't, lest anyone be trying to eat lunch while reading my blog. All I'll say is that to this day, when I see filth and excrement, I refer to it as "pri peci."

Part of my trip involved visiting some of the more popular tourist sites in western Slovenia and northeastern Italy. This quite enjoyable exercise was helping me orient myself with what the country had to offer visitors, relative to where my B&B might be located. RM and I took day trips to the Adriatric ports of Piran and Trieste. We toured the magnificent Postojna Cave and the Renaissance Predjama Castle, built into the mouth of a cave. We saw memorials to soldiers and partisans. We explored rivers, vineyards and pastures. We hiked to the source of the Soca River. Slovenia is truly an undiscovered gem, rich in natural beauty and history.

On the fourth of July, RM invited me to take an evening walk outside the apartment in Lokve. He was carrying a sack as he led me a few yards down the street and into an open field. There, he surprised me with two fireworks fountains he had purchased in Italy without my knowledge. As I was applauding the sparks surging into the sky and the rather loud reports, I heard a baby start to cry. A light went on in an RV parked behind the nearby restaurant. Like two errant children, we giggled and ran back to the apartment, leaving the now-devoid fireworks in the field where we would pick them up tomorrow when it was light and they had cooled. I felt a little guilty about disturbing the silence of this sleepy village and yet, I couldn't help but feel proud about my native country. I might be looking at homes to buy in Europe, but the good old United States would always be first in my heart. What a wonderful gesture from RM. I just hoped our landlord, who was the mayor of Lokve, didn't receive any formal complaints.

It was my turn to surprise RM later that week. Thursday was his birthday and he wanted to spend it on the Soca River. I had brought gifts for him from the States and, unable to get out on my own to get a cake, I stuck a match in a filled pastry and sang "Happy Birthday." That evening, he roasted part of a suckling pig in the oven -- his birthday wish. Just after dinner, RM's phone rang. He talked briefly then hung up, smiling.

"That was Zvonka. She said she's found exactly what you're looking for but it's going to go quickly. We meet at her office at 9 a.m., tomorrow."

Having now looked at more than 20 properties, I wasn't going to get my hopes up too far. And yet Zvonka, by now, had gotten a pretty good handle on what I was looking for. Tomorrow, we would all know whether this one was a hit or a miss.

When we arrived on Friday morning, we were greeted by Jana, Zvonka's assistant. She had a huge smile on her face and was so excited she couldn't speak even broken English, choosing instead to let RM translate.

"She says it's an old stone farmhouse in Goce and it's just perfect," RM said, taking me aside as the phone rang and Jana answered.

"Do you think it's the one we've seen?" I whispered, my heart sinking a bit.

RM and I had gotten a call from someone about a house in Goce that the owners were trying to sell without an agent. I had felt a little guilty about going to see it without any of the various agents we had worked with thus far, but the whole real-estate process works differently there than it does in the States. Many properties are bought and sold without agents.

Goce is Slovenia's oldest village, laid out in the shape of St. Andrew's cross. The saint's namesake church towers above rows of connected stone houses on vineyard-covered hills above Vipava. You could see Goce from the motorway but once there, you couldn't hear it. That meant easy access without unpleasant traffic noise. A perfect combination for a B&B. The house we saw was small and nestled in the middle of a long row of structures. The owners had restored it the way I would have, using reclaimed doors and windows, tile floors and leaving some of the stone walls exposed. It had two large rooms on the ground floor and three bedrooms upstairs. You had to walk through one bedroom to get to another and in that one was the only bathroom. Perhaps I should just say, "bath." There was no "room" about it. The claw-foot tub, pedestal sink and toilet were simply lined up along the back wall of the bedroom. No privacy here. The tiny garden in the back was pretty and it had a garage. It also had an asking price of nearly 200,000 Euros. I figured that property must be pretty pricey in this lovely ancient village. Neither the price nor the property would work for me.

RM and I decided we would go take a look at whatever Zvonka had found. After all, there were many more houses in Goce. I hoped she was going to show me a different one. If she took us to the one we'd already seen, we'd just experience a moment of awkwardness. That's all.

As we drove into Goce, we turned left at the little school where we had parked on our first trip there. RM negotiated the narrow street with his car but instead of going in the direction we had walked previously, Zvonka told him to turn right. The street was so narrow between the houses on the corner that RM had to back up a few feet and take a second run at it. We parked a few yards up the street and waited while Zvonka knocked on the door of one of the houses. The neighbor had the keys.

Zvonka motioned for us to follow her. In front of us, just to the right of the neighbor's house, was a gate in a tall stone wall. The buildings inside were crumbling as were my expectations. But then Zvonka continued to walk down a narrow passage between the stone wall of the ruins and the side of another huge house. In front of us was another iron gate. As I neared the gate, I gasped at the courtyard in front of us. It was overfilled with fig trees, roses and hydrangeas. A tall palm tree stood at the far side of the courtyard which was surrounded by tall stone walls on three sides and to the left, an Italian-style farmhouse. I had to stop to catch my breath as my eyes took in everything and my brain started clicking to catch up. I didn't know anything about this property yet but I was overwhelmed by both a sense of peace and spiraling excitement. Embossed on the small metal license-plate-looking house number near the front door was "Goce 23."

Napoleon Slept Here

Running Man (RM) and I spent Sunday seeing a new part of Slovenia for me. We drove down from Lokve, passing Nova Gorica to jump on the motorway that runs southeast to Ajdovscina and toward Nanos, at the end of the Julian Alps. As soon as I saw the countryside of the Vipava Valley, I was in love. Fields of crops, lush grass and vineyards covered the cradle of the valley while orchards, vineyards, pastures and timber covered the rolling foothills on either side. Small white clusters dotted the hills -- ancient villages, each featuring a church spire reaching up into clear blue skies. I had never seen anything quite like it and yet, I had dreamed about just such a place.

We exited the motorway and drove into the town of Vipava, named for the river than runs from it, through the valley, and over the frontier into Italy. The river is fed by multiple springs that appear and disappear from the ground and from the rock that walls off the back of the town. Sometimes called the "Slovenian Venice," Vipava is a picturesque town filled with small arched stone bridges that rise and fall over the river that winds through it. The town starts just off the motorway, then rises up into the side of sheer hills. On one jagged peak, high above the town, sits the ruins of a 12th century castle. Below, the town center is dominated by a huge manor house, built in the late 1660s by the wealthy Lanthieri family. You can still catch a glimpse of its original Venetian architecture beneath the dominanting Baroque features, added during a major renovation a century later. The main street is lined with Baroque statues of boys depicting the craftsmen and artisans of that time. And across the street from the house are the three surviving of four huge plane trees, planted in homage to Napoleon in the early 1800s.

Since it was Sunday, the town was fairly quiet so we could walk around and marvel at the sights. From one of the bridges over the river we could lean over the side and look under part of the Lanthieri manor to catch a glimpse of the huge inner courtyard. In the center of the courtyard is a wide, arched stone bridge where the family would enjoy their meals over the cool river during the summer months.

From Vipava's center, we drove to Zemono, the former hunting lodge of the Lanthieri family. Built in the late 1600s, the structure looks like a Palladian villa snatched from Venice and placed upon a hill with 360-degree views of the valley. The building was closed for the day but we could take in the fabulous views from the grounds. 

Stomachs growling, RM suggested we drive to Ajdovscina to grab a pizza at the microbrewery restaurant before returning to our apartment in Lokve. I had found that the Slovenes make the same great brick oven-baked pizza as the Italians, at least in this part of the country. I'm sure that's because this part of Slovenia was occupied from time to time by the Venetians and the Italians. I doubt the Austro-Hungarian Empire contributed to this particular culinary item.

We sat outside and enjoyed our pizza and beer, talking about the places we'd seen and about our Thursday appointment with a realtor in Nova Gorica RM had discovered through the proverbial grapevine. RM had told him what I was looking for and he assured us that he had some appropriate properties. I was getting anxious because Thursday was a long way away, it seemed, and my time here was running short. I wanted to look at as many properties as I could.

Full from our meal, we took a little walk around the neighborhood so RM could show me where his brother, sister-in-law and nephews lived in a large apartment above some shops, offices and restaurants. They usually spent their weekends at a little "holiday house" high up above Ajdovscina where they could escape the warm temperatures in the valley.

I stopped in front of an office to look at the homes for sale, plastered across a plate glass window. Several of them looked very interesting and RM translated the information. This might be a very good realtor for me. We wrote down the contact information printed on the door and headed back to Lokve.

RM called the realtor the first thing in the morning. She wasn't in yet but her assistant said she'd have her call back when she arrived. I worked on client projects on my laptop while awaiting anxiously for her call. The phone rang and RM answered then continued a conversation of which I could hear only one side and couldn't understand a word of it anyway. He hung up, smiled and asked if I was ready to go. The realtor had some things to show us.

Zvonka was a pleasant 50-something ball of fire who was hard of hearing and spoke no English, although her assistant, Jana, did. After quick introductions, we hopped into RM's car and drove to one of the properties we'd seen on the office window. Hard of hearing or not, her phone rang constantly and she would excuse herself to answer. She had a great sense of humor, or so RM told me. After all, I couldn't understand what they were discussing. But she smiled a lot and made me feel at ease despite the language barrier.

The first property we saw was near Ajdovscina and just off the motorway. It was a huge stone manor with a large walled garden. Apparently, Napoleon had slept there. Not a bad feature for a B&B. Whether that was true or not didn't matter. It was apparently part of the home's lore. The property was owned by multiple people in Ljubljana and she didn't have a key to the house. Nonetheless, we could walk around the property, through the gate and into the overgrown courtyard where we could peer through the ground-floor windows and spy some of the treasures inside.

Zvonka didn't know how much the owners would sell the property for, although rumor had it priced around $300,000, including the antiques inside. Reasonable for such a large place but too much for my budget, unless I could find a really great investor. It was huge and would need a lot of work. It was also near enough to the motorway to be just a little noisy, although the high stone walls gave it a marvelous sense of privacy.

Next, she took us to an even larger place that was being restored by a young man looking for partners. It, too, was near the motorway but sheltered by a line of trees. The castle, as it was called, came with huge grounds and was surrounded by acres and acres of open, flat farmland. It was massive and far more than I could ever think of owning. Still, I wanted to see something that was in the early stages of renovation. Hey, to dream cost me nothing.

On either side of the huge, arched main doors were the openings through which a drawbridge once rose and fell over a long-ago filled-in moat. They stood in sharp contrast to the awkward electrical lines, slapped onto the castle's exterior walls. It was going to cost millions to restore this relic, but what potential. The main staircase led up to a huge central hall with doorways on either side. The doors led into a large room with rooms on either side of it. I could easily envision the layout for a spacious, grand guest suite. 

 

This would be a phenomenal B&B, although I would have to charge a phenomenal price for staying there to make it work in a business plan. Zvonka knew it was out of my range but thought I should see it anyway. I liked that about her. She understood the importance of seeing a variety of properties and was willing to take the time to show them.

She took RM and me to three other houses that day of all shapes and sizes, but all in the Vipava Valley region. I knew that none of them were "the one," but I was now starting to better judge the locations, conditions and prices of the properties, relative to one another. What I was confirming was the fact that this was the area where I wanted to live. It would be my own little combination of Napa Valley and Tuscany at a Slovenian price.

I was hungry to see more and that was no problem for Zvonka. Give her a day, come back on Wednesday, and she would have many more properties for me to see. I couldn't wait.