Tsfat Dreams
We’re Nicole and Amir, the owners of Villa Tiferet. We moved to Israel with our four children from Toronto, in 2005. That's us back then.
Although we moved to central Israel, we soon fell in love with the mountains, open vistas and fresh breezes of northern Israel. We spent many a Shabbat in Tsfat and soon bought a house there. This was not a regular home purchase; we found ourselves the owners of a house that was about 200 years older than the country we had left - Canada.
It was an empty, cavernous shell covered in white plaster. With imagination and inspiration, we quickly set to work creating a dream home.
When I first saw our new home, with its large, private courtyard, I was reminded of my travels to the Barrio del Santa Cruz in Sevilla, Spain. It brought me back to my university days, wandering along Sevilla’s cobbled streets and peering through wrought iron gates into shaded courtyards planted with palms and twisting vines, the bright walls painted in lemon yellow, sky blue and adobe.
Although we moved to central Israel, we soon fell in love with the mountains, open vistas and fresh breezes of northern Israel. We spent many a Shabbat in Tsfat and soon bought a house there. This was not a regular home purchase; we found ourselves the owners of a house that was about 200 years older than the country we had left - Canada.
It was an empty, cavernous shell covered in white plaster. With imagination and inspiration, we quickly set to work creating a dream home.
When I first saw our new home, with its large, private courtyard, I was reminded of my travels to the Barrio del Santa Cruz in Sevilla, Spain. It brought me back to my university days, wandering along Sevilla’s cobbled streets and peering through wrought iron gates into shaded courtyards planted with palms and twisting vines, the bright walls painted in lemon yellow, sky blue and adobe.
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As we were now in the Middle East, we decided on a design recipe: a sprinkling of Seville, a heaping of Morocco plus a comfortable dose of modern. Amir, who loves to cook, took on the kitchen design and found a place on a kibbutz near Haifa that could build us a gourmet kitchen fit for a chef. Taking the expert advice of our friend and contractor, Yosef, we decided to remove all of the white plaster on the walls. This was our bravest decision to date as most people choose to expose the stone on one feature wall or maybe part of a wall, but to expose an entire house? This was a bit daring, but as the stonemasons started to scrape and chisel away, we knew Yosef was right on. |
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They set up scaffolding to reach the heights of the domes and soon exposed beautiful, ancient stone that had probably not seen the light of day for centuries. Since our home was once part of a church, the stones used to build it were large and of the highest quality.
We marveled at the grace of these stones--and to this today, I often find myself staring up at the stones, hypnotized by their beauty. As the stonemasons scraped, they found old niches |
that had been covered over, plus rings that were used to raise and lower oil lamps. And if you look up in the dining room today, you will see these old rings.
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There was a flurry of activity as the plumbers, tilers, painters, stonemasons and carpenters worked away, helping us create our vision. The tilers pulled up the original Moroccan tiles and repositioned them under the dining room table and below the fountain in the courtyard.
We then consulted design books for décor ideas and started to comb the streets of Tel Aviv to find furniture, light fixtures, pillows, fabrics and dishes. We discovered an entire street dedicated to just door handles and kitchen knobs, while another road was lined with eclectic lighting stores. I think our most exciting purchase was the ruby red chandelier that hangs above the dining room table!
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Our house finally complete, we lay back in the courtyard on the pillows and listened to the splashing fountain. Swallows swooped into the water and as the sun was setting, we raced to the roof to see it disappear behind the mountains, dabbing the sky with tangerine, crimson and pink. We cannot keep this to ourselves, we both thought. As so Villa Tiferet came to be.
We are still living in central Israel as our children are settled in school. But when it’s time for open skies, fresh air and a spiritual lift, we always head north to hike, bike and reconnect with Tzfat. |
And, of course, we come to relax in the courtyard then sip wine as the sun dips behind the mountains.
We invite you to enjoy this experience.
Amir and Nicole
We invite you to enjoy this experience.
Amir and Nicole
