Rebuilding a f utu re

YOU COULD SAY THAT REBECCA MOODY AND MICHAEL LEACH ARE SERIAL MOVERS (THEIR FAMILY AND FRIENDS CERTAINLY THINK SO). THEY ’ VE TOTTED UP EIGHT HOUSE MOVES IN THE TEN YEARS THEY’VE BEEN TOGETHER. BUT THIS NEXT MOVE IS THE BIGGEST YET AND SHOULD (IN THEORY) BE THE PLACE THEY REALLY START TO PUT DOWN ROOTS

DURING THE four years we’ve been living in Portugal, we’ve lived in four houses. Ironically, we’ve never been more settled. But let’s start with why we chose Portugal in the first place.

Even though we did it for all the clichéd reasons – the food, climate, people, quality of life, etc – this is also the place we feel most at home (so much so, I keep threatening to take one of those DNA tests to see if I have Portuguese ancestors). It just felt ‘right’ and the more we came here, the harder it became to return to the UK.

So, after a couple of years of planning, we finally made the move here in 2019. Looking back, this ‘planning’ involved viewing a few houses, buying the second one we saw, getting a Portuguese mortgage, selling all of our stuff in the UK and booking a ferry to bring us, our cat and car across. We hadn’t got a clue about Portugal’s high tax rates, mindboggling bureaucracy and other such challenges… but even if we had, we wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

Our first home was a renovated farmhouse in the foothills of Monchique. It was idyllic (minus the fact the land had been gutted in the 2018 fire – but that’s another story for another time). We were opposite the Odelouca River and the only traffic we saw was the cows coming home.

But we’d never ventured outside of the Algarve before, and when we did, we realised Portugal had so much more to offer us and the way we wanted to live. You see, we’re not your typical ‘ex-pats’. Being 35 and 49, we’re some way off retirement (although Michael gleefully likes to claim he’s ‘reformado’ if anyone asks!) and we didn’t move here to live amongst the British. No offense.

After two years in the Algarve, we began searching further afield, making our way through the Alentejo and into Central Portugal.

The search begins

Our first trip was to the area in and around Castanheira de Pêra. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. We viewed a couple of houses near Pedrógão Grande on the first day; one (‘blue shutters’ as it was affectionately known) was a definite contender, while the other, an off-grid farm, had an incredible amount of potential but the 20-minute drive down a track surrounded by

The house Rebecca and Michael fell in love with that is now their project – from start to finish. What a glorious challenge, and every change will be of their own making eucalyptus trees was a firm no-no. We’d seen what the fires can do, and there was no way I wanted to be that far away from a main road.

On the second day, we headed up to just outside Lousã to a smaller location called Braçal. As I punched it into the sat-nav, I couldn’t understand how the 26-mile journey was going to take over an hour. But if you’ve ever driven along the N236 here, you’ll understand why. It twists and turns its way past schist villages with stunning mountain views around every corner. Completely impractical if you want to get anywhere quickly, but an absolute must if you fancy a ride out one day. The property itself was schist stone but felt slightly out on a limb and more like a holiday home. The estate agent was also delighted to tell us that it was in fact one of our fellow countrymen who owned the properly directly opposite…

A month later, and having missed out on ‘blue shutters’, we were heading up to Zimbreira to explore this area, including Marvão. Marvão is another must-visit. It’s a bit like Monsaraz but less touristy and the entire area has a slightly medieval feel to it. The standout property of this visit was an old water mill by a secluded river. It ticked a lot of boxes externally but the mill itself wasn’t very big and the only other accommodation was a new block building that had no kitchen.

We came back feeling incredibly overwhelmed and decided the only way to find the ideal spot was to sell up and move into the centre of Portugal so everything was within a day’s drive for viewings. We knew we wanted to be above Lisbon but no further than Coimbra.

Our Monchique house sold quickly – to a German family who only ever viewed it online – so the frantic search for a rental was on. There must be loads, right? Wrong.

Discovering the place

Unless you’re looking for a holiday let or a one- or two-year lease, and you’ve got no pets (we’d now got a cat and a dog), you’re incredibly limited when it comes to rentals. But as luck would have it, we ended up in a small village near Tomar in a three-month let. We hadn’t specifically chosen Tomar, but I think, unbeknownst to us, it had chosen us.

The entire area is so steeped in history that we actually spent an entire week with some friends going from castle to castle. And the fact that we were closer to bigger cities like Lisbon and Caldas da Rainha, where we could pick up our favourite hobby again (buying antiques), was another huge plus.

Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s colder ‘up North’, either. The climate in and around Tomar seems to be one of the hottest in the country. Our friends in the Algarve (English, no less) seemed to think we’d perish over winter living up here.

In between visiting castles and bragging about the heatwaves, we were viewing properties. And we didn’t need to look at many before we stumbled upon a renovated sandstone property in a small hamlet about 20 minutes above Tomar. It had all of the dreamy character of the French properties we loved to drool over on A Place in the Sun, but it was in, well, Portugal. And as it was still in the process of being finished, we could have a say on some of the finishing touches. It was idyllic. Until...

No matter how well-finished a property may be, there’s always going to be something you’d have done differently if you’d done it yourself. And while we could have happily lived with the modern bathrooms, the PVC windows and the slightly orange woodwork, both of us had started to envision doing our own project (without the other knowing). We’d not been living in the property long and both of us were trawling through Idealista looking at potential doer uppers.

One night, we finally came clean with one another.

We decided that it could take a long time to find the right project, especially as we wanted to stay within this area, so we weren’t going to sell the house until we found something. We wanted to make sure this next move was right (!) and we definitely didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of renting again. Our favourites list in Idealista was a treasure trove for would-be renovators. There was everything from run-down olive mills to old factories in secluded valleys.

Then, one day, a property popped up. Something just drew me to it. It wasn’t a tumbling down mill or ruin on the river, but it just had something and I wasn’t quite sure what it was. That night, I showed Michael, and half expected him to question why I was even showing it to him. But he agreed – it did look interesting. So that weekend we drove past the property and decided we had to book a viewing.

It’s an old schist stone house a few kilometres from the Rio Zêzere in Figueiros dos Vinhos. The house itself is a typical Portuguese farm/manor house with a living space (albeit without a kitchen or bathroom) upstairs and wine cellars and storage downstairs. But with it also comes two schist stone outbuildings that are crying out to be annexes. It’s in a valley with a stream across the road and it’s unbelievably tranquil (turns out village life – no matter how small a village – is still too busy for this antisocial pair).

Now, let’s take off the rose-tinted spectacles. There’s a hell of a lot of work to do. Everything needs ripping out and restoring and we’re effectively going to have to camp out there while we make part of it habitable. According to the council, the outbuildings don’t exist, and because they’re in protected forest land, we can’t register them – even though they’re as old as the house, if not older. So we’ve no doubt got a headache of a time involved in trying to get them registered – but, we’ve got time.

The sale on our current home is due to complete this month. It sold within a week to a Belgian couple who viewed it via a phone call with their friends on WhatsApp. Lucky? Maybe. Fate? I’d like to think so.

It feels like for the past ten years we’ve been building up to this. This is the part where we pull together everything we’ve got to create a home that’s exactly as we want it. We will be doing most of the work ourselves and will be salvaging, restoring, upcycling and remaking as much as possible along the way. We can’t wait. It’s idyllic…