EL GARROFERET, FOYES BLANQUES 15, JESUS POBRE
Our life together in Spain in a rented house, Casa Pascana, until we found and purchased El Garroferet, a 150-year-old finca, in December 1999.
We spent 20 good years there before selling in February 2020 and moving permanently to Jardines del Sol in Javea Port
The name garroferet is so-called because of the very old carob tree which adjoins the house. Carob is ‘garroferet’ in Valenciano (algarrobo in Castilian).
We were very unimpressed with local agents, which was the reason why we started Javea online selling properties the next year. We found our finca through Tony’s friend Jack Haggarty who lived in Jesus Pobre and knew a couple wishing to sell. Will not name them, but the husband was an ex-bank manager. As was the custom in those days and for many more years to come, to save tax the sellers wanted some of the purchase price in cash. This we did. Later the seller denounced us as he was investigated through his Jersey bank and we were fined a lot of money by the Spanish authorities. So we added bankers to our list of people to avoid which then included lawyers and estate agents.
We took some photos of the house when we purchased it and these can be found here. It is interesting to look at these and then immediately view how the house looked when we sold it 20 years later here
We have some ariel photos of the house where you can see the environment around us. Also the solar panels and the Sky TV dish we installed
Twenty years ago soon after we bought it and we were surrounded by almond trees and after we had installed solar and Sky dish
A later view of the house and some of the land – now more barren around us
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A different aerial view
We have many photos of the house and gardens over the years and some of these can be found below.
We carried out a lot of Restoration to the old finca we had bought, much funded by the profits from our Javea Online business. Replacing all the roofs was the biggest job (while living in the house), but we also did lots of other improvements
We created a completely new area above the house, which we called the Cordoba area. Previously just a rough piece of land we tiled it all, installed a fountain and built steps, using railway sleepers, up to the next terrace.
There was a plain courtyard between the back door and the pool. In fact, the original front and back doors are in this courtyard – over 100 years before there was a pool. Following a visit to southern Spain, we tiled the walls of the whole courtyard changing the plain white walls to an Andalucian tiled courtyard, renewed the steps to the back naya and re-tiled this upstairs naya. We call this the Granada courtyard.
A new pool coronation and re-tiling of the whole pool area was a big job but then the pool area gave us so much pleasure over the years.
We have a hundred photos of the plants and trees over the twenty years and some of them are available under Garden
And a few sundry photos
All of our kids came to visit us there and also friends from the UK and their visits can be found here.
When we were in Argentina for a month in November 2016, Don and Katherine looked after our house. While they were there something very very unusual happened
We had some amazing Sunsets
But also some bad things happened
Firstly Jo’s accident in the car. She was always getting into scrapes. In 2017 she had an argument with some wasps and on 25th October 2018, she fell a metre down a terrace above our house onto rough ground. Tony was at the poolside power washing and didn’t hear her cries, but Pepa was and she called him. Jo was taken by ambulance to Denia hospital and on 23rd November had an operation to repair a broken bone in her back.
Previously we had the terrible fire which could have destroyed our house
but so did some funny things including Jo killing a wild boar
Eventually, we decided to put the house up for sale. Here are some For Sale. and here some More
Then after 20 great years, we sold our lovely house to Rob and Piet in February 2020
On the day before we sold Tony took three very last photos
