Booking, contact & about
Please use this form to contact me for anything on this site
Hi, I’m John Heseltine. My wife, Ana Maria, and I run La Rupina. We left the UK for the EU back in 2016, and these days we split our time between Tuscany, Lisbon, and London.
I decided to create this website because I wanted to share the story of building (and rebuilding) La Rupina - the wins, the losses, the complications, and the compromises. For me, it’s been fascinating to relive the experience and remind myself of everything we went through to create the two stunning houses we now enjoy. For others, I hope our story will be educational - part encouragement and part cautionary tale.
Looking back now, I would describe what we went through as a lot more like "Bob the Builder" than "La Dolce Vita".
Some advice for those of you who decide to embark on a journey similar to Ana’s and mine: I can pretty much guarantee that there will be times when you wish you hadn't, and there will be nights when you climb into bed exhausted after a day of defeat, knowing that you will have to get up in the morning and try again. But there will also be days when you stand back and look at what you have achieved and say to yourself "I did that and it’s good". To keep going you just need to make sure the latter outweigh the former.
My history
Having experience of hands-on practical work has been hugely important in making this project a success. I don’t think I could have done it if I’d only ever had a desk job.
After I left school in 1975 I got a job in engineering at GEC Generators in Stafford; I later moved on to doing contract work on power stations for the UK’s Central Electricity and Generating Board. In the 1980s I moved to London and learned about electrical work and plumbing, eventually living on an old Dutch barge, which I converted into a houseboat.
In the early 1990s desktop computers became more available and I reinvented myself as a freelance desktop-publishing designer and developer. I spent many years creating educational CD-ROMs for big publishing companies that relied on outside contractors for this kind of specialist expertise.
The early 2000s saw me designing websites for Mercedes in the London office of German advertising company Springer & Jacoby, but by mid-2000 I had decided to specialize in design and development for medical education and marketing. It’s interesting, it’s worthwhile, and I’ve been busy ever since, working both in Europe and in the USA. (if you are interested you can check out Heart Explained)
Then, on the 26 June 2016 the UK had its Brexit vote and the next day Ana and I began planning an exit of our own.
My advice
There is a maxim in construction that every job has three components: speed, price, and quality. And you can have any two, but not all three. Give that a lot of thought before you start. Which one are you willing to give up?
I can't offer universal advice about building and renovating houses. In Italy, rules and regulations are open to wide interpretation and a great deal of what happens comes down to personal relationships. But every place is different, and my experience at La Rupina probably won’t be relevant to a building project somewhere else.
But there are some general principles that are worth considering:
- Don’t assume you can take on a building project and expect to do all the work yourself, it's not the wild west.
- Don't go by what you see on TV or YouTube. These programs and videos are made to entertain, they are not to be taken literally.
- Make sure you know and understand what is acceptable in the local community, and to the people you will be working with, so you can avoid doing something that might get you into trouble.
I suggest that you find a geometra (if you’re in Italy), builder, electrician, and plumber before you buy a house, not after. After may be too late. In rural locations, where skilled people are few and far between, you may find that you have very little choice, and if you have to hire people you don’t get along with it can make the work very stressful.
Our decision to buy La Rupina was very impulsive, but we already knew who we would be working with before we made our offer. We were just waiting for the right property. And when it appeared we moved fast and we were ready to go.
Lastly, pay your invoices promptly. Things like this are especially important in rural areas where tradespeople are often sole proprietors. If you are a good customer and you pay your bills, literally everyone in a ten kilometre radius of your house will know this. You may not know them but I can guarantee they will know all about you.
And many thanks to Jane Hunter for all her help in turning my incoherent ramblings into sensible text.