Gabriele and I, after 10 years of living together, wanted to have children and were determined to settle in Greece. In 1973 we had lived on the Island of Karpathos for 10 month and had visited Greece again & again since then. We decided that the Peleponnesse was just right for us - relatively unexploited by the tourist industry with stunning landscapes, beautiful beaches, crystal-clear seas and friendly locals - and we thought it might also suite our small purse.

Living in a customised coach, we took our time and looked at many, many places along the coastlines of the peninsula. One important criteria, aside from beauty & accessibility, was that the village did not have too many new roofs. They were a sign of recent development and indicated a certain wealth.

Already a little desperate, on our 2nd time driving up the west coast of Mani (it had to be a west coast because of the sunsets) we stopped in Kardamili and met Nikos Ponireas, who gave me some advice while he filled up my one-gallon amphora with local wine in his taverna. A mere two weeks later we signed the contract, buying a ruin at the upper edge of the vivacious village of Proastion; this was on May 5th 1980.

The following day - May 6th - I started building.

1980 - Stephan takes a break from building and his father pays a visit to the ruin that will become a home.

The ruin consisted of just four walls of old, hand cut sand-stone, no roof, no floors no doors, no windows …. and there were two olive trees on a small barren lot which went with the house. A great place we thought with nice views over the village and the sea and the moutains behind - the best, we thought, we could have found after this long and determined search. it really was love of first sight, blind love, I would say today, I had no idea what it really meant to make a cosy family home out of these four walls but it was true love, as we found out, because after 30 years we are still happily living there.

On the 7th of December, with Gabriele now pregnant, we moved in. There was a roof by now, floors & windows, but one room still had a floor of red earth …. and we had the only working bathroom in the area - an indoor toilet! We also had a bathtub, a shower cubicle and hot water! We also had a washing machine. Our bath soon became a focal point for the little colony of foreigners, who visited us to talk, to play cards or tavli or music, to drink wine and have some mezedes which they sometimes brought with them, but mainly to wash their clothes and themselves.

Clea was born in Kardamyli on the 30th of April in 1981 - another story, no easy childbirth, which made us to decide that, should we have more children, they should be born in Germany.

Gabriele & Clea

And so it came to be. Armin was born in March 1984 and Margarita in November 1985, the family was complete.

Margarita - Clea - Armin - Gabriele

After I had done our house I started to renovate an old coffee house in the mountains, a wonderful place which had never had electricity or running water. It was big place, of which, at one point during the work, just three outside walls and a huge arch remained. We restored the facade, numbering every stone, exactly how it was. The house was a success, and new jobs followed.

In the mornings and nights - as I had been doing since 1977 - I was writing plays for radio & theatre, of which some were produced in Germany.

The most important aspect of settling in Proastion was that having more than 400 inhabitants, it was lively enough in those days, to have an elementary school and to have enough children for ours to play with. It seemed to us very important that kids have kids as company.

Clea & Armin

The school was in use until June 2010. One lady teacher, wonderful Kiria Panaiota, had to teach 6 forms at the same time in 1 classroom. All three of our children went there and they liked it very much, especially the 'daskala', the teacher.

Kiria Panaiota	6 forms - 1 class

Later they attended the Gymnasium in Kardamyli, 7th to 9th form, then Lycio Kardamyli on the 1st floor in the same building, 10th - 12th form. After that, off they went to far away places to study and then to work.

Gabriele & I are still working & studying, only we are still in Proastion and the kids & their friends love very much to return - summer or winter - and we visit them. The family is still close and tightly connected.

Margarita, Armin & Clea

 

Clea Kaske - a short CV

Born and raised in southern Greece, went to public Greek school in our area, and then moved to the United States to attend college at Stanford University in California. Clea graduated with a degree in International Relations with Honours in 2003. She later worked for two years in the public sector in California and Washington DC, and then moved to Boston to attend Harvard's Kennedy School of Government where she graduated with an MPP in 2007. She now works in Geneva, Switzerland.

Armin Kaske - a short CV

Same beginnings as Clea; he finished high school in Kardamyli in 2002 and was working for 1 year with Stephan and Mani Developments until he and Margarita jointly went to Dresden, Germany, to study architecture.
Internships in Greece and Sri Lanka.
In summer 2009 he graduated from TU Dresden (Technical University) as a degreed engineer & architect with a thesis on Urban Development and Domestic Architecture. He then worked in an architecture firm in Jena, Germany, and is right now working as an architect in Zurich, Switzerland.

 

Margarita Kaske

Same beginnings as Clea & Armin!
After finishing high school in Kardamyli in summer 2003 she & Armin went to Dresden, Germany to study Architecture at the Technical University.
Internships in Paris and Shanghai.
She graduated in summer 2008 from TU Dresden as a degreed engineer and architect with a thesis on Resort- and Hotel-Developments and Domestic Architecture. She then worked for 1 year for an architecture firm in Lucerne, Switzerland and is right now working as an architect in Zurich, Switzerland.

Since being students Margarita & Armin participated intensively in the projects of Mani Developments; ideas are exchanged, buildings designed and drawn together, aspects of engineering are discussed.
It's difficult for Stephan in Greece - although he is used to doing quite a bit of research - to be up to date with new trends & designs, materials & techniques, in which Margarita and Armin naturally are at their best and they enjoy educating their father. Having joined him on almost each and every building site since going to elementary school and having grown up in the area they share with their father the admiration for the seemingly perfectly balanced design and proportions of the tower houses, the traditional village houses and the neoclassical buildings in the more important little towns of the area.

So, Margarita & Armin enjoy the best of both worlds - an aesthetic appreciation of Greece and the Mani in particular, together with the knowledge of modern techniques, materials and environmental issues.   Their contributions are highly appreciated and you can see their plans, elevations and computer-generated "artist's impressions" or "renderings" throughout this website. 

When there was time (Greek pupils enjoy a 3 month long summer holiday) and money, the Kaske family travelled extensively. We visited the USA and Burma, Sweden & Egypt, and a lot of countries inbetween. And of course, we visited family in Germany again and again, though we never stayed longer than a couple of weeks. We believed that, if you bring up your kids between olive trees and goats, traveling extensively would help their education and we never travelled just for leisure and sun. Why would we? We lived in the sun and went for a swim twice a day, if we felt like it. The children grew up between the cultures, and from being in high school and during their studies they had internships in Athens & Albania, Macedonia & Bosnia, Paris & the US, Shanghai & Sri Lanka, among others.

Last but not least, Gabriele; her short CV as an artist:

Gabriele in her studio

1955 Born in Kassel, Germany
1975 Matriculation in Freiburg, Germany
1976 - 79 Studies in Archeology and Philosophy in Freiburg
1976 - 80 Travels to Egypt,Turkey, Greece, Italy and France
1980 Residence in Greece with Stephan
1981 - 85 Birth of our three children

Single Exhibitions
1991 Gallery Papazian Cairo
1995 German Embassy Athens
1996 Cultural Center Kalamata

Joint Exhibitions
1980 - 2008 Several exhibitions in Greece
1992 Gallery Papazian Cairo
1996 National Bank Kiparissia, Greece
1996 Under Different Skies, Cultural City Kopenhagen
2001 - 08 Old School Kardamyli

After extensive journeys through India and Sri Lanka, Gabriele started a whole sale gem business with her Indian business partner from Jaipur in 2004.

At the same time she is a registered olive farmer in Greece, please visit her
web site Kaliroi.

 

Stephan and Clea at Knossos, Crete

Back to Top