Boris Becker finally gives up on his dream of a family home in Mallorca

ome
August 12, 2007 Section 6
Break point
<strong>Boris</strong> <strong>Becker</strong> <strong>finally</strong> <strong>gives</strong> <strong>up</strong> on his
dream of a family home in Mallorca
People who live in glass houses Glamorous conservatories Gardening Bring the beach home

20 COVER STORY AUGUST 12, 2007 . THE SUNDAY TIMES THE SUNDAY TIMES . AUGUST 12, 2007 COVER STORY 21
oris <strong>Becker</strong> wants to sell
his estate in Mallorca. Really,
he does, though you would
be forgiven for thinking that
he hasn’t quite reconciled
himself to the reality that if
e can find a buyer willing to hand over
t least £10m, the houses, gardens,
wimming pool, paddocks, farm and
ennis court, of course, will no longer be
art of his life.
<strong>Becker</strong> is even still refining the
pread: gym equipment for the new
xercise room in the pool house and
ats for the adjoining yoga room are
ue shortly. No, the three-times Wimbleon
winner doesn’t actually do yoga,
ut “I stretch a lot”.
As we tour the property on 75
ecluded acres in the north of the island,
he story of Son Coll emerges, and with it
he twists and turns of <strong>Becker</strong>’s own life.
he tennis star, who won Wimbledon for
he first time aged 17, is staring 40 in the
ace and letting go of a dream. The famly
retreat he worked so hard to create is,
adly, surplus to requirements. “The
hole idea was a family house, but now,
y two boys are in Miami and my daugher
is in London, so that’s two or three
eeks a year here, and that’s it,” he says.
For anyone still unaware of the story,
<strong>Becker</strong> had a brief sexual encounter in
1999 in the London restaurant Nobu
with Angela Ermakova, a Russian-Algerian
model; it produced a daughter,
Anna, now seven. He gave them his
west London flat, then valued at
£800,000, as part of the eventual paternity
settlement. His wife, Barbara Feltus,
mother of his sons — Noah, now 13, and
Elias, 7 — divorced him, and kept their
£1.8m Miami house.
“Ten years ago,” he says now, “my private
life was a little different.” As was
Son Coll, tucked away down miles of
dirt track near the small town of Arta.
“My best friend, Carl-Uwe Steeb, the
German tennis player, had a finca 10
minutes from here, and I used to come
and see him. His friend showed me one
parcel of land he had for sale. I said,
how many do you have? Eight? Thank
you very much. I got them all.” He says
he can’t remember what he paid in May
1997 for the adjoining plots of arid
scrub, just that “at the time, it was very
little money”. German press reports
claim it was about £300,000.
“There was nothing but this old finca
with pigs in it. It was completely rundown,”
he says. “I thought, the farmer
must have built it here for a reason: it’s
because the sun comes <strong>up</strong> on the left
and sets down here” — he sweeps his
arm down the hillside to the right — “so I
had to include this house and build
round it to preserve tradition.”
Now immaculately restored and used
for guests, the house, with a relaxed
modern decor that includes dramatic
pieces of Kenyan tribal art, sits on a corner
of the plaza <strong>Becker</strong> has created at
the heart of his estate. <strong>Becker</strong> himself
ASTA LA VISTA
<strong>Boris</strong> <strong>Becker</strong> has spent a decade creating a magnificent Mallorcan estate — but without
a family to share it, he’s now downsizing. He takes Karen Robinson on a guided tour
lives in a four-bed main house, a twostorey
colonnaded affair, the length of
half a dozen terraced houses, that dominates
the northern aspect of the square.
Single-storey guest houses and garages,
an old bread oven and a shady terrace
under a spreading oak line the other
sides. In traditional style and old local
stone, with mature trees in the plaza and
surrounded by gardens and terraces,
the complex looks timeless. But apart
from the finca, it’s all new — and it was
not achieved without controversy.
A few years after he bought Son Coll,
it was reported that <strong>Becker</strong> had flouted
Mallorcan planning laws, and that the
authorities had made him pull down
new buildings and pay huge fines — <strong>up</strong>
to £280,000, said one source. Perhaps
the money wasn’t important to tennis’s
first truly s<strong>up</strong>er-rich star, who had
earned an estimated £100m by the time
he retired in 1999 (he wouldn’t confirm
the figures). What hurt was the attitude
of the authorities.
“My only plan was to be here in time
for a millennium party,” he says. “But in
November 1999, just as I was about to
move in, they said, ‘You can’t ...’ Well,
it took them two years to explain why.
I got embroiled in politics.” He thinks
that the change of government, to a leftof-centre
party that, he says, didn’t like
him (because of his nationality, riches or
fame, he wonders), sc<strong>up</strong>pered his plans.
Progress was slow, until they were
voted out in 2003, and “all of a sudden,
it was fine”.
“Their story was that I built too big,
but when you see the scale of the whole
property, you wonder. I have no neighbours;
I’m not spoiling a view.” Small
adjustments included removing the first
floor at the end of the main house —
depriving his boys of a playroom next to
their bedrooms — and exposing a terrace
at the other end. “They used to fly
over in a helicopter to have a look. So I
took it off. I’m going to put <strong>up</strong> a sail to
make this a place to watch the sunset.”
<strong>Becker</strong> takes pleasure in what he has
achieved. “I come from a family of architects
and interior designers. I was on a
building site before I was playing tennis.
So I was very much involved.” He chose
the theme of the main home: “I was
inspired by the city of Marrakesh, the colours
and the mosaics — a lot of the furniture
and fabrics are from there.” Framed
family snaps cluster on antique inlaid cabinets,
and the television room has intricate
mosaic work on its floor and walls —
“Someone sat here for a month to do
that.”
We go outside so he can show me
what the land looked like before: we
gaze down the hill at the dusty sunbaked
scrub and parched trees, then
back at the terraces of well-tended
lemon, orange, olive and lime trees on
verdant lawns, stretching to a 35-metre
pool and an ochre and terracotta pool
house. “It’s Arabic-influenced, and I like
the way it changes colour all day long as
The 35-metre pool
and Arabic-inspired
pool house
The relaxed modern
decor features
Moroccan touches
The 75-acre 75-acre estate estate includes includes
a farm, paddocks paddocks and, of
course, course, a tennis tennis court
Puerto
Andratx Andratx
10 miles
MALLORCA
Palma
Arta
Manacor
Font de
sa Cala
the sun moves round. The idea was to
keep a vista so, from the pool, you can
look through the pool-house atrium
across the lawn to my little coliseum”.
There is a charming mini-amphitheatre
here, although its purpose is unclear.
<strong>Becker</strong>’s political adversaries
returned to power in May, but he insists
his troubles are over and that his property
has all the correct legal permits. His
main home is in Zurich and, from
November to March, he lives in an apartment
in the luxurious Setai hotel complex
on Miami Beach. Not the kind of
chap who likes to live on a building site,
it wasn’t until May last year that Son
Coll was in a fit state for him to move in.
When he did, he had a house-warming
party for 200 guests in the plaza.
The central compound, girded by
curving stone walls like a mini bastide,is
the heart and soul of the place, but
there’s plenty more to see. We hop into
a black Mercedes (besides a post-tennis
career of television appearances and
commentary and branded sports gear,
<strong>Becker</strong> owns three Mercedes dealerships
near Berlin) and raise a cloud of
dust over the bountiful vegetable plot,
en route to a cluster of guest houses.
“When I used to travel with my family,
because of kidnap threats [that his
former wife was mixed race enraged
some German extremists], it was always
with two or three bodyguards, so this
was for them. That was the original
idea.”
Nearby is the house of Angela and
Tomio, who run the estate and the farm.
<strong>Becker</strong> is a bit hazy on the finer details
of animal husbandry, such as what
breed of pigs he owns, but he obviously
loves the whole set<strong>up</strong>, snatching handfuls
of feed for the goats and running
alongside the sheep pen with his arms
in the air till the animals join in. We
move on to inspect the 15 Andalusian
horses. “In my past life, I must have
been a cowboy. Your mindset changes
when you come here. Stress and city life
don’t matter,” he says quietly.
But there’s a strain of melancholy,
too. At the neglected tree house and
adventure playground, the absence of
children is palpable. There’s a full-size
basketball court that, when his sons are
here, the three of them “play on every
day”. But they’re not here.
Still, the man who once declared
“fatherhood is the best thing in my life”
cheers <strong>up</strong> when we reach the tennis
court, the surface of which is made of
the same cushioned acrylic material
used for the Australian Open in
Melbourne (grass is not well suited to
the Mallorcan climate, while clay is
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet:
<strong>Becker</strong> and friend in
the house he intended
as a family retreat
unforgiving on middle-aged knees). In
a reminder of past triumphs, the net
poles, appropriately enough, are “the
original ones from No 1 Court at
Wimbledon”.
<strong>Becker</strong> wants to spend one last
summer at Son Coll, then, he says,
“have a decent family guy come in
October and take over”. He plans to
downsize to a smaller, more manageable
place in the Son Vida area. And his
children will be consulted on what kind
of house he will buy.
n Son Coll is for sale through Kühn
& Partner; 00 34 971 222299,
www.kuhn-partner.com
FINCA THINKING
For more images of Son
Coll, visit timesonline.
co.uk/buyingandselling
Balearic
style
Sa Vinya is a traditional estate
set in 11 acres near Puerto
Andratx, to the southwest of
the island. It has a four-bed
house with harbour views, a
guest flat, den, office and triple
garage. For sale for £9.3m,
with the Property Finders;
00 34 971 233207, www.
thepropertyfinders.com
Set in 35 acres, on the east
coast, this restored finca, near
Arta, has four bedroom suites
and three reception rooms,
including a living room with an
original olive press. The garden
has fountains and a swimming
pool. For sale for £3.37m, with
Savills; 020 7016 3740,
www.savills.co.uk
Right on the seafront in Font
de sa Cala, this villa has its
own jetty. The property, which
needs work, has 11 bedrooms,
11 bathrooms and three
reception rooms.
For sale for £2.8m, with
Savills; 020 7016 3740,
www.savills.co.uk
Near Manacor, this fourbedroom
villa is built in
traditional Mallorcan style and
features reclaimed materials,
including doors and ceilings
from old palaces. It has its
own golf course and helicopter
pad. For sale for £2.6m, with
Pius Müller Gmbh; 00 41 44
388 6500, www.mspm.net