At Home in Portugal
PREFACE
This is an incredibly special story to me. My cousin Jeff, six months younger than me, is a talented artist, and he is like a brother to me. Of his many beautiful creations, the masterpiece I most admire, is his life itself. He has always lived life with ambition, positivity, joy and intention. From a very early age, when he was just a little tow-headed smiley school kid, I have a vivid recollection of Jeff dreaming of exotic and faraway places… So to see him manifest his dream in the form of his third and final home in Tavira, Portugal, has been a marvelous thing to behold. I am honored and grateful to share the story of his move abroad, here. Also continue to follow his occasional additions in his own section on my home page: https://www.wanderlush.life/jeffs-stories
by Jeffery Richard Olde
My journey to living in Portugal with my husband Alan, probably actually began when I was a little boy, more than 50 years ago in Denver. As a kid who always felt “different” and not like the other boys, I found myself drifting off into a fantasy world of castles and beaches and palm trees and dreaming of exotic places around the world. Thanks to my wonderful parents - my actual home was in the happiest and most secure place a could kid imagine. However, feeling “other” and like an outsider once I stepped outside our front door, left me dreaming - and likely plotting - my escape to somewhere far, far away. Being afraid to be discovered to be the freak I felt I was, I would often return from school and dive into the latest issue of National Geographic magazine or pour through our encyclopedias looking up exotic places.
Probably around age of 11 or 12, I actually started calling airlines or travel agents to “pretend book” travel to the most exotic places I could think of only to hang up the phone when the conversation got too close to needing an actual transaction. It makes me laugh now to think of the poor adults on the other end of those calls wondering why this child was trying to book the red eye flight to Bora Bora.
My parents fueled my love of travel by taking us on vacations all over the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Other than being a bullied little gay boy, I had a charmed childhood indeed.
In my teen years, I delved into art, even winning a national sculpture contest in New York City for an enormous fantasy castle that I created entirely out of clay.
After earning my degree at American University, I moved to Hollywood in 1987. Eventually, I channeled my creative energy into a 31-year career in Hollywood as a television producer and executive in charge of production for networks including MTV, VH1, and E! Entertainment. During that time, it is possible that I “greenlit “a few shows I shouldn’t have, just so we could go shoot them in Asia, Europe and the tropics!
We renovated our Spanish Colonial home in Hollywood, and lived there and in the area for 33 years. We had a full and happy life there with an incredible community of people we are still close to.
I enjoyed my career in Hollywood immensely, but I always knew it was a young person’s business. So, after more than thirty years I retired from the entertainment world in 2018 and my husband Alan and I began to explore our future options. Alan and I both always shared the dream to one day live in Europe. Then, when the political situation in America took a dark turn in 2016, we started to seriously consider moving abroad.
So first, we spent the better part of the next two years traveling all over southeast Asia, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, Northern Africa and Europe. It was on one of these trips that we had our first adventure in Portugal and fell in love with the place. The magical town of Sintra in particular with its staggering fairy tale castles was the literal vision I had imagined when I had created that clay castle 40 years earlier.
All of the sudden it was literally a dream in full color.
So we returned from this travel with Portugal in particular calling to us, and after much investigation, it became clear that Portugal had one of the easiest immigration processes in Europe. And by “easy” I mean very challenging, but doable, which was good news for us as we truly loved Portugal. But first, a Global Pandemic…. put a temporary but painful hold, on our dreams.
Fortunately, only a few months before the pandemic hit we sold our Hollywood home right in the nick of time, then we found a Palm Springs mid century modern that we could restore. The project became a happy way to create our US home while we planned our big move. This is still our home that we own and love.
(Fun fact from Brenda: If you ever Google “Best places to travel in February” as I did one time, you’ll see Jeff’s Palm Springs backyard and pool pop up in the listing representing Palm Springs, California 😳😍 Their home was featured on the famed Mid Century Modern Home Tour a few years in a row. Too bad it isn’t for rent - it’s already rented all but November and December when Jeff and Alan come home to see us all. )
Finally, when the world was mostly safe at last, in June, 2022, we embarked on a long awaited five-week road trip through Portugal to explore the country and see what town might be a “fit.” This was our “Goldilocks” town tour. “This one’s too small, this one’s too big, this one’s too cool, this one’s too hot, this one’s too touristy, this one’s too remote, this one’s over developed, this one’s not developed enough.”
We often joke that we basically “speed dated” Portugal. We weren’t there as tourists on this trip, but rather we were trying to see if we could uproot our lives and actually move to one of these towns. Sometimes we would drive into a town and within 2-minutes, go, “NOPE.” Others we had to stay in a bit and kick the tires to see if it was a fit.
After much research, we’d narrowed down our search to 20 towns that we wanted to visit and evaluate. We had already eliminated Lisbon and Porto as options. As much as we loved both cities, after decades in Los Angeles, we knew we wanted a smaller town with a slower pace. We also wanted warmer winters. So we concentrated our search on towns from central Portugal to the southern coast.
Initially there were so many towns on our list that we were sure would be “the one,” only to quickly realize that they were not. We also got over the beautiful towns built on steep hilltops that are so pretty to look at, but a long walk up or down a hill for a cup of coffee. Then there was the reality check of navigating slippery cobblestone streets on rainy days. I bit the dust more than a few times and decided that the average lifespan in these quaint little hill towns was probably around 37...
After five weeks on the road our list of what we were looking for became more and more focused. Our very last stop was the town of Tavira in the south east coast of The Algarve, about 20 minutes from the Spanish border. We parked our car and took a walk through the charming shady park that lines the river Gilão. We were immediately struck by the wonderfully preserved historic town center with its charming, twisting cobblestone streets, picture perfect little squares and bridges, and gorgeous tiled buildings. It looked like a painting—AND it was relatively flat! We sat down at a little café in the main square for a glass of wine. I can’t remember who said it first, but we looked at each other and both seemed to simultaneously utter out loud, “I think this is our town.” These two Goldilocks had found their beds.
In Tavira, we instantly felt the energy and vibrancy of the town. Yes it was small, but it was a real town that still retained its Portuguese authenticity. The thing that saved Tavira from being over-developed like other parts of The Algarve is that Tavira is not directly on the beach. You have to catch the ferry downtown for the 10 minute trip to Ilha Tavira and the stunning Rio Formosa nature preserve. No cars or development are allowed on the island, so it’s just miles and miles of gorgeous white sandy beaches. No development means that no hotels are built on the beach. So Tavira escaped the development craze that blights much of the central Algarve. The result is a beautifully preserved historic town and pristine nearby beaches that are largely physically unchanged through the centuries.
Today there are very strict preservation laws and regulations that protect the historic character of the Tavira. In fact, no changes can be made to the exterior of any building in old town without the sign-off of the city architect and (in certain cases) a vote of the city council. This leads me to the part of the story where we did the ONE thing we promised NOT to do for at least our first year in Portugal. Less than three weeks after arriving in Tavira in March of 2023, we bought a really old townhouse in need of a remodel. I blame this impulse on my favorite movie, “Under The Tuscan Sun.”
As our house was the only single story building on the block, we bought it knowing there was at least the slim possibility of adding a second story, but no guarantees. The house could be made fine as it was, but it was very small. Alan and I are big fans of preservation and had redone our three other historic homes in our past. So we were more than happy to work closely with the architect and the city to try and make the addition happen. After seven months of working with the city to get the plans approved, and after eight months of construction, our second story addition now looks like it has always been there and fits seamlessly with the other old townhomes on the street.
As the remodel began, we were shocked to learn that the walls were made of thick stone held together by a mixture of mud and seashells that were actually wet to the touch in some places (which is a huge problem with old buildings in Portugal). We don’t know how old our house is, but we do know that the church on the corner was built in 1640, so, it’s old! In the end, we decided to expose and repair the old rock walls of the house where we could. Downstairs we remodeled the small kitchen, redid the two bathrooms and removed a hallway wall to create a larger guest bedroom. Upstairs, we added a primary bedroom, a bathroom, a large closet with a washer & dryer, a little bar area, another sitting room, and covered an existing large patio with a pergola for shade. This gave us a great indoor/outdoor area and significantly increased our usable living space. From this lovely perch, we get to look out at the old tile roofs of our neighbors and pinch ourselves that we live here. It’s a small house, but we absolutely love it. And we could not be happier in our charming little adopted town!
Our lives are full here as we dive into learning the local culture, study hard with our Portuguese language professor, practice our Portuguese with our sweet and patient! neighbors, take long daily walks with our dog Tucker along the Rio Formosa and around the beautiful orchards and countryside surrounding the town.
We are very aware that we have the ability and resources to do things to our home that our Portuguese neighbors could never do. So our goal is to give back to the community however we can even in little ways like helping our older neighbors with their groceries and always shopping locally where we can. It’s also important to learn their language, customs and history. And we have vowed to never rent our house for profit and support local ordinances shutting down new vacation rental licenses as that really hurts the locals.
Never before have either Alan or I felt such a strong sense of community. Two years ago, we started a small LGBTQ+ social group - The East Algarve Rainbow Club - that has grown from eight people to now over 300 members from all around the Algarve! In fact, one of the most fulfilling things about this move has been creating this group of warm, wonderful, welcoming folks from all over the world and the monthly parties, pickleball groups, drag bingo, wine tasting adventures, and impromptu beach parties that have resulted.
Finally a few times each season we treasure being able to take many road trips all over Portugal, Spain and France - or catch a quick flight for weekend trips to Marrakesh, Milan, Madrid, London, and Paris. We never have a shortage of visitors too, and sometimes we travel with the friends and family that come to visit.
It's been quite a wonderful full-circle journey for a little boy who once dreamed of faraway castles and now happily lives next door to one.
AFTERWORD…
Already during these past few years so many of us from the Olde Clan have been able to visit Jeff and Alan in Tavira. Jeff’s siblings Karen and Johnny have both visited several times, and remarkably, my parents also visited this past April, when my mom turned 88 and my dad was nearly 91! This summer both of our sons just visited - Derek in July, and Evan in August. We visited in April 2024, and below are my photographs of the breathtaking coastline of the Algarve.
Jeff’s life of artistry has been shared far and wide and his Joie de Vivre inspires us all.
Jeff Olde & Brenda Lush
WanderLush