In the late ‘80s my father bought a land on a beautiful island close to our hometown. He started to build a humble beach house for our family, but the progress was very slow because he did not have enough money to hire a construction company so he had to build everything with his own hands, only occasionally assisted by some friends. I helped him as much as I could, but I was still a child. Building a house on such an isolated island was very difficult because all the material (even gravel) had to be brought from the mainland, and as there was no ferry connection, my father had to bring all building material by his small boat.
In 1998, when me and my sister were in the university and my parents’ salaries barely covered the cost of our studies, I suggested my father to take a bank loan to finish the house and then to rent it during the summer season in order to return the loan. As it was soon after the war in Croatia, he was worried that in case of further instabilities the tourists (who slowly started to return to our region) would disappear again and then he would not be able to pay off the loan. So I suggested him the opposite approach: to start renting the house although it was unfinished (at a low price) and then use every season’s earnings to continue finishing the house. I was in charge of advertising and booking (I created our first Web site in year 2000, while still many Croatian hotels did not have one), and I helped my parents with hosting and maintenance. Although this plan was successful and the completion continued, it still progressed very slowly. 3 years later I graduated, got my first job, soon I got married and then my wife and me decided to invest all our savings and future earnings to accelerate the house completion. 3 years later, in 2005, the house was finally finished. Then we focused on the yard and garden - every year we added something: paved the terraces, built the pool, gazebo, pergola, canopy, sunbathing area, depositories, etc.