Folks
Who we are and what we do
We are Erik and Estrella de Vrijer, two fifty plus people, that decided to change their lives after their youngest child left home. Erik is designer (studiofreebird.nl) and Estrella is healer and coach in the area of everything that has to do with relationships and sexuality (www.praktijk-estrella.nl).
In december 2014 we bought two hectares of land just outside of Looperskapelle, a hamlet just outside of the village Scharendijke on the most northern island of Zeeland, Schouwen Duiveland to realise our dream, that is building a wooden, energy-neutral house and realising a retreat center, that you can rent when Estrella is not doing workshops or retreats herself. Next to Erik and Estrella, there are also three dogs living on Finca Vrij; Luna, Zorro en Chelsey and their cat Beatle. Also you may sometimes find volunteers from different organisations (like wwoofnetherlands.org or helpx.net) walking around helping us realising this enormous project.
Because we would like to live self-sufficiently as much as possible, we have, next to the triple glasing and a heavily insulated house, solar panels for electricity and we build a huge permaculture vegetable garden and food forrest for our veggies, fruits and nuts and ofcourse the many chickens provide us with daily fresh eggs.
The house is now build and we enjoy living on this beautiful and peaceful island with its friendly atmosphere.
The retreat center has two buildings. In the one building there is a beautiful, spacious room for your workshop, with big open windows, toilets and attached a huge glass house, which you can use as a loungeroom and dining area. The small, but profesional kitchen is also in the glasshouse.
In the other building there will be 6 bedrooms for 2 to 4 people, with each their own bathroom.
Next to all the building, we are also creating a peaceful and colourful garden that goes with the retreat cente. A lot of trees and bushes needed a good trim and some TLC. For the third year in a row we have planted hundreds of new trees and bushes to create some privacy and some wind free areas. (By now we have put about 3500 in). Next to the glass house there is a herb and tea garden where you can pick your own herbs or tea.
