Chronicle of the Lindrainweg 30-1

Drawn up by André

Our holiday home
The large house at Lindrainweg 30 in Hopfgarten was built in 1975 by the owner of the then local installation company, Mr Josef (Peppie) Weißkopf. At the time it was one of the largest and most spacious houses in Hopfgarten. The plot used to have an agricultural purpose and was wonderfully situated, outside and above the village, on the sunny side of the house mountain the Hohe Salve. It is situated on a flat and sunny plateau, at an altitude of 717 metres. And with a magnificent view over the valley of the Kelchsau in the distance:

The Glantersberg on the left, the Markbachjoch on the right behind the tree and the Feldalphorn and Schwaigberghorn in the distance. From the time of construction, the entire ground floor was sports, sauna and gymnasium. But this house turned out to be far too big for normal family use and at some point Peppi rented out part of it to very wealthy oil sheikhs from Saudi Arabia. At that time I saw with my own eyes the excitement going through the village when these gentlemen in white robes and with Arab headscarves, in their white convertible Rolls-Royces, drove through the village. In 1979, Mr Weißkopf decided to convert the entire ground floor into two large flats and rent them out.

Marianna
Marianna was born and raised in this beautiful village Hopfgarten, situated between Kufstein and Kitzbühel.
Her parents have always run an authentic mountain farm on the Gruberberg. You can see it when you look up from our terrace to the left, against the mountain on the other side of the valley. It is located five kilometres (walking) from the village centre. Cows, calves, chickens, pigs, cats and a horse used to be her few playmates. But most of all she was happy with the frequent guests who spent their holidays on the farm. They brought variety. Immediately after primary school Marianna went to the boarding school of the Weitauer Landwirtschaftschule in St. Johann, where she was trained to run a farm as a farmer’s wife. After completing her studies at the Landwirtschaftschule, she first gained a great deal of catering experience at various Gasthäuser and ski huts, after which she eventually became the housekeeper/gouvernante in a well-to-do business family. Here she was an integral part of the family and in their villa she also had her own flat.

Marianna has always been very involved in the social life of Hopfgarten. Her passion was dancing. She was part of the Schuhplattler Tanzgruppe Hopfgarten and in that capacity she performed in several countries of Europe and often also in the Netherlands (Arnhem Gelredome, Eindhoven Philipshal, Veldhoven, but also at various village festivals and carnival weekends in Brabant). She was dance teacher of the children’s dance group Hopfgarten and held several board positions. She was also a member of the Trachtenverrein Hopfgarten. In short: Marianna was and still is strongly connected to her Heimat Hopfgarten and every authentic Hopfgartner knows her.

André
André was born and raised in Ede op de Veluwe. His youth mainly took place in the outskirts of the Gelderse Vallei and the outskirts of the Zuidwest-Veluwe. After completing his studies as an instrument maker, mechanical engineer and marine engineer, he specialised in environmental issues and then spent his entire career working for the province of Zuid-Holland as a soil remediation project leader. His leisure activities included technical hobbies, windsurfing, skiing and holidays to beautiful nature reserves. He often combined this with skiing and hiking holidays in Austria and surfing holidays along the coasts of Yugoslavia.

Together

I met Marianna in 1987 when I was travelling to a surfing holiday in Yugoslavia.

When our son Christian announced herself in 1990, Marianna came to live with me in the Netherlands. In 1997 our daughter Dorien announced herself.

In the same year, one of the two flats at Lindrainweg 30 was put up for sale. Marianna decided that it was time for her own permanent place in Hopfgarten and bought this flat. The flat was then quite out of date. We decided to renovate it completely under our own management. It was an intensive busy period during which we dismantled the flat into a bare concrete skeleton and then completely rebuilt and furnished it to what it is today.

For a long time the flat has been one big construction pit. Family, friends and acquaintances regularly went on “holidays” with us, of course to lend a hand. In that period our family slept with grandmother and grandfather on the farm. But to keep things a bit logistically easy, the “workers” usually slept in garden chairs, improvised beds or even in the bathtub. For a week we had no more windows or doors. To keep watch, we just slept with our coats on in front of the demolished windows. It was a pleasant period and a lot of work was done by many people.

Our thanks go to my brother Ben who, in consultation with the local energy company – everything to do with electricity – has been removed and installed completely new, complete with main group cabinets and the for that time innovative electronic remote control of the heating, boiler and some other features. Thanks also to his son (and my nephew) Marcel, who in those barren early days was a pioneer man of everything, sleeping between piles of new window frames, pallets of bricks, bags of cement, a lot of construction and demolition rubble and sometimes even without windows and doors. But other friends and acquaintances also did a lot during the reconstruction. Uncle Hans who spent days shovelling rubble was in the chutes that led to the downstairs rubble containers, Coussin Matthias who did all the stucco work. It was a great time of togetherness. It took us all many holidays, but it was fun to do.

In the years that followed, we renovated the garden and built a garden shed. The outskirts used to be one big wasteland of shrubs and rocks. It hadn’t been maintained for years. The redesign of the garden mainly consisted of removing all the old shrubs and constructing concrete plateaus, terraces and stairs.

Another period later, a carport was built at the top of the car park. I have a special memory of my friend Ed who offered to drive back and forth with his truck-combination and crane to deliver the new carport I made in the Netherlands, build it together and hoist it together; really great!

In the past 23 years we have come to love this place. It was the ideal resting place for us in a hectic life. It’s not without reason that a separate category “take a break” has been added to the photo album. Almost all of our friends and acquaintances have made regular use of this. Many a friend has been able to recharge his or her battery here. Whether it’s summer or winter: on our covered terrace you can always lie in the sun. Apart from the occasional soft noise of the train crossing the valley and the singing of the crickets, it is usually deafeningly quiet here. If you are lucky, in the evening twilight you can see the roe deer grazing in the neighbouring meadow of neighbour farmer Peter. Squirrels are jumping through the trees and you can hear the woodpeckers chopping them and tapping out the insects.
And in addition to its serene quiet location with stunning views, it is also a perfect place to go for lovely walks or bike rides (mountain bike). But also further in the region there are plenty of great opportunities for excursions and day trips.

I’ve driven from the Netherlands to Hopfgarten more than 300 times and to be honest, I’m not bored. It is a pity that it is 950 kilometres away from our house in the Netherlands. As a ray of hope for the future, however, I draw hope from the geological fact that Hopfgarten is getting closer and closer as the continents shift and the Alps continue to get higher.
Marianna and André would like to share this resting point with you and with others. That is why we decided in 2020 to open our holiday home to other people looking for peace and quiet. You are very welcome in Marianne’s flat, enjoy your stay.

Marianna and André wish you a pleasant and relaxing holiday.