Living the dream

An adventurous South African couple weathered rough seas, an earthquake and absent builders to turn an idyllic farmhouse in Greece into a “friend to strangers”.

- Annelize Visser

Much like you can’t control the wind, you can’t hurry a yacht – or a Greek builder…

This is the lesson that intrepid South African couple Henry Paine and Sally Kennedy, both avid sailors, learnt when they purchased a small piece of land on the island of Lesbos in Greece two years ago, and decided to renovate.

The property was surprisingly affordable at less than R1 million for a small doublestorey house on 1 700m2 of land. Although the dwelling was habitable, it was in poor condition, so the pair decided to renovate and rent it out as luxury accommodation when they aren’t enjoying the space themselves. But dreaming of a renovation in Greece and actually pulling it off… that’s a whole different bottle of ouzo.

When Henry met Sally in 2002, she was building a holiday home in Ballots Bay on the Garden Route, but conflict between her and the architect at the time almost landed them in court. Enter Henry, an award-winning heritage architect who won Sally over with his patience and willingness to listen. By then she’d run out of money, so she offered Henry unlimited use of the house in lieu of payment and he accepted.

A few years later, while collaborating on her Saxonwold home, Henry discovered Sally’s adventurous side. What tipped him off was a mad dash to Mumbai to buy miles of gold, emerald, red and lime silk for curtains.

“I thought it would be cheaper and I’d have an adventure at the same time!” Sally recalls. As it turns out, Henry was on the same page. He’d long had a dream of buying a yacht and sailing around the Mediterranean, and by then their creative partnership had blossomed into romance. In 2011, they went to Greece to buy a boat and ever since, they’ve spent at least three months of every year sailing wherever the wind blows them.

On the journey