Full Circle

Michael Palin has nothing on us. Just under a year ago, Emma and I came to Montenegro for the first time. It’s probably fair to say that neither of us could have imagined everything that has happened in the 12 months since – back then the idea of buying a place at Lake Skadar was a daydream based on nothing more than a bit of internet research and some bravado following our successful renovation in Croatia. Had we any idea that buying and restoring a crumbling ruin perched on the side of a hill would be so fraught with difficulty, would we have made the same decisions? Would we have bought the house in the first place? Would we have made the design choices we did? Would we have worked with Bolimir? Would we have learned how to swear fluently in S/HR/CG/MJ?

Well, “probably not” to all of the above, but even if we’ve made mistakes, it’s been a hell of a year. Granted, we had hoped to be finished by this point rather than heading back to the UK, but as anyone who has watched Grand Designs or No Going Back will know, a project of this size is never going to run smoothly. Until, that is, you start working with Zlatko Vujitić.
Back in May last year, we drove down to Monte from Dubrovnik. On the way, we stopped off at the charming village of Perast near the Boka Kotorska, where we noticed the Hotel Conte, a charmingly restored pension that made full use of natural stone and wood.
“That’s the style we’re after,” we thought.
Later on, in Virpazar, we saw two more buildings that had been constructed with every bit as much sensitivity, a konoba in town and another on a semi-private freshwater beach.
“Those have been done beautifully, too,” we said to each other.

Later that same week, in Podgorica, we were taken by the good Doctor Dean to Calabria pizzeria and the Long Road Café (where we also met Zelkjo, the chap with all those classic cars). They were both gorgeously restored and decorated, and we expressed our admiration for whoever had been responsible. It was then that we found out that all these places had one man in common – Zlatko Vujitić. Stupidly, we assumed that he owned all of them, but a couple of months ago we were informed somewhat belatedly that only the café and the pizzeria actually belonged to him – all the others were the work of his building firm.

“Wow – what if we could get him to take over from Bolimir?” we pondered aloud. Two or three phone calls and a couple of meetings later, and we had the news we never thought we’d hear; Zlatko agreed to try and salvage our project for us. If you have a spare minutes or two, go check out his website on

www.zvdesign.info. If you can make it past the charmingly dodgy English, you’ll understand why we are now very, very happy indeed.

For the last week and a half, Zlatko’s guys have set about rescuing our build. Working ten hour days, his five-strong team have fixed most of Bolimir’s blunders, plastered our konoba wall, expertly begun cleaning our stonework and have generally done more work – to an exquisite standard – in a week than Boli managed in a month. And yes, they’re costing a fair bit more, but quality always does.

And Bolimir himself?


Yep. And it felt pretty damn good.

Additionally, we’ve had Ilja and his 75 year-old dad methodically putting up partition walls and we even welcomed back Dragan Plumber, who helped us finally connect the water supply, albeit to a temporary outside tap fed by 10,000 litres of lorry-delivered water. The real plumbing will have to wait until later – it’s a bit of a saga all of it’s own, actually, and a bit too tortuous to detail here.

So, in a week’s time we’ll have left Monte (for the time being at least). The house isn’t finished, of course (and nor will it be for another year or so, there’s still loads to do), but for the first time in six months Emma and I have been able to leave the site knowing that the build is in the hands of a bunch of consummate professionals. When Goran, Zlatko’s head majstor, asked me if we had any plastic sheeting to protect the wooden beams, I almost cried. When Dejan, his brother, asked us in advance where they should put any rubble and rubbish, we were so overcome by such thoughtfulness that we felt like bowing down before him in gratitude. And when we saw the first results of their labours...for the very first time we could see what an amazing place this house was going to become...one day.


Yes, yes, such behaviour should be normal or nothing worth blubbing about, but believe me, it’s highly unusual here. Even our excellent carpenter, Dragan Doors, thought nothing of chucking his left-over plastic bags into our garden, so to have conscientious AND skilled tradesmen turning our rubble strewn konoba into a beautifully restored living space...well, it was almost too much for us to take in.

This wonderful week came on the back of a great weekend “hosting” – in our half-finished abode – our friends from Tivat/Kotor, Tim, Katie, Laura and Tony. Although they all live out here in Montenegro too, none of them were very familiar with the “Deliverance zone” so we were quite nervous about what they might think of our chosen spot.

We reckon they were pleasantly surprised. Not half as surprised as Tuzi the cat, however. Tony, Laura, we owe you several large ones for agreeing to give the little bugger a home. We had thought we were going to have to abandon him in Virpazar, you see. When told the news, Tuzi began licking his balls in contentment. Enjoy it while you can, Tooz. They’ll be coming off pretty soon.

So we’re currently back where we started our Montenegrin odyssey, staying in Doctor Dean’s cave for our final week while the plaster-dust flows up at the house. When will we be back? Hard to say. There’ll be a couple of flying visits later this year, but thereafter the more pressing question is how quickly we can find employment back in Blighty so we can pay for Zlatko and his team to properly finish the house. They’re on phase one of three at the moment, but you know what these things are like…the phases just keep on coming. We’ve got garden walls to repair, a roadside wall to build, rain-water collection to finalise, compost toilets to consider, and a very grumpy electrician to deal with…

But one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, we might have something that looks a little like this:

VILLA ZABES (2010/11?)

In the meantime, if you're still hungry for more photos, have a look at Emma's photostream on flickr.com - http://www.flickr.com/photos/virpazaz/sets/72157617746331254/ - to see our house taking shape in all its gory glory...

"And if he comes back again, I'll knife him."