"It was going to be a simple, rustic guesthouse wooden chairs, cotton curtains, whitewashed walls ...'" Hallie Robinson told me as I ran my hand over cool polished concrete, coveting every design accent on display: Bamileke feather headdresses, woven cowhide armchairs, framed vintage Portuguese food labels, little antique tin robots and battered straw hats. "But an earthquake changed that," she finished. The seismic event one night in 2010 meant that the early 19th-century farmhouse that she and her husband, Tim, had recently bought (on sandy foundations, it turned out), had to be almost completely rebuilt. It was no longer just a lick-of-paint job the walls and roofs had to be reconstructed and the family had to move out.
That set in motion a comprehensive restoration that has seen the old farmhouse transformed into a small, stylish country house hotel that opened last September. Fallen shutters were re-purposed as headboards and cupboards, trees were brought back to life as outdoor tables and chairs, terracotta floor tiles were commissioned to match the 1959 originals still intact and flea markets were scoured for quirky treasures. The phrase "labour of love" could be bandied about here, but Hallie and Tim have been fastidious in every detail of the project, from the height of skirting boards to the dining room tables, which were assembled using salvaged wood from Biggin Hill Airport in Kent.
A keen eye for aesthetics isn't surprising, given Hallie's background in fashion PR. The Londoner at first found it hard to uproot to this sleepy corner of Portugal, but childhood summers spent with her parents at their holiday home in the Algarve, and then years later a minor heart attack suffered by Tim meant the decision was made.
However, they haven't come here for a quiet life. Even now the hotel is up and running, Tim and Hallie are unremittingly enthusiastic about the future of Fazenda Nova: bottling their second olive-oil harvest this autumn, then perhaps adding geodesic rooms to the grounds or finding a beach house on one of the nearby islands for guests to use during the summer.
A septuagenarian lady, tending to a luxuriant rosemary bush, waved to us. "Ola Giuliana!'"Hallie waved, then explained: "She lived here from the age of six to 54. She was so pleased to find out the house was being restored that she came back; now she helps us with the gardens." She also bakes mean pasteis de nata, which are delivered still warm to the breakfast table. Later in the day the small kitchen, complete with its 200-year-old bread oven, offers a concise menu that might feature battered salt cod and chips, cataplana (a local fish stew) or salad with Jos sardines.
