Life
Finding a Place in the Sun
Artist & Writer Lucy Hawkins details her recent experience filming for beloved British TV show A Place in the Sun, in search of a family home in Pollença.
My husband and I recently had the pleasure of being filmed for the UK TV show, A Place in the Sun. Having only moved here a few weeks beforehand, it was all very last minute. We were still waiting for news on our visas, had an apartment but no furniture, were easing our kids into their first nerve-wracking days at school and were also endeavouring to continue to work seamlessly for our Australian employers and clients to keep this whole relocating enterprise afloat.
Finding presentable clothes in our still unpacked suitcases and going on camera looking like we hadn’t a care in the world seemed utter madness. But as fans of the show for years, it was just too good an offer to decline, what if they found us something really special?
Although it may sound like I’m a newbie, it isn’t the first time I’ve lived here. I left my career in TV in London to see the world. I lived in Mexico, Bermuda and Argentina working as a travel writer before finding myself in Mallorca in 2010. I fell in love with the place. It had the excitement of Latin America as well as the proximity to friends and family in England.
I wrote for Euro Weekly newspaper and a few magazines on the island as well as presenting on then English language radio station, Luna Radio. But after a year in Palma, winter was drawing in and all my yachtie friends were moving on and I decided to leave also. I moved to Australia and started painting, met my now husband, James, had two daughters and wrote a children’s book. Life was sweet but I couldn’t stop thinking about Mallorca – the sea, the pueblos, the church bells and cobblestones. The fiestas, the food, the people, the light…I wanted that for my girls, and for me and my husband.
We came to Mallorca for a recce in 2023 and decided to make the move, returning to Australia to sell up and apply for Digital Nomad Visas.
When we arrived on Mallorca in May this year a friend shared a post from A Place in the Sun. They were looking for house-hunters in the Balearic Islands. I applied with the same gusto I tackle most things, although not really expecting to hear back. To my surprise, they emailed me, then arranged a video call, then a screen test and within a few days - success! They said they wanted to film us and were we available in two weeks’ time? James, sensibly, thought we had enough on our plates, but ever the optimists, we decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
On our first day of filming, we headed to Port de Pollença to be interviewed on camera about our life journey, why we had chosen Mallorca and what kind of house we were looking for. My requirements for a home had changed from when I lived here years before. Back then I was single and independent, a journalist living in Palma’s La Llonja in a tiny apartment on the first floor of an 18th century terrace. Many would argue it should have been condemned but I loved its charming character, even with novelties like not knowing if you were going to get electrocuted every time you turned the lights on (!)
This time around I had my husband and daughters and wanted more space and less quirk. We wanted to replicate the small town feel of rural Australia, a community surrounded by fields and mountains. We chose the charming town of Pollença in the north of the island where we could climb mountains and feed goats. We were enamoured by the town and its routines; the local bars with senior Mallorquins discussing the football, neighbourhood women talking on their front porches, the call of the church bells and the closed shutters for siestas after long family lunches.
We loved how rarely we used a car, walking the girls to school with the other kids and their parents. Within a few weeks we knew our neighbours’ names and helped one another out. We were discovering a wonderful community here in addition to country hikes and sea swims all around us.
This was the brief we gave the research team at A Place in the Sun, and they took it very seriously. We had numerous Zoom calls with them going over locations, budgets and deal breakers. Right from the off the presenter, Laura Hamilton, and crew instantly made us feel at ease. Laura is a master renovator and there isn’t much she doesn’t know about what to look for and avoid in a property.
The first property was a narrow 3 storey townhouse with the ground floor recently renovated. While the entrance hall was spacious, light and uplifting, everything else was small, dark and claustrophobic. The problem with moving from Australia is you’re used to so much space, and unless you have a bigger budget than ours, you’re not going to get that in Pollença’s old town.
I’ve watched A Place in the Sun for years and I’ve often cringed at how insulting some of the house hunters can be. To be fair I tended to share their opinions, but I felt for the vendors who would be watching it back. So, I vowed to be nothing but cheery! Despite my intention to be positive it was hard to keep the disappointment from my face as we were shown a windowless living room and the outdoor space which was just big enough for a washing machine. I just had this sinking feeling. Instead of eating outside on warm summer evenings like I’d dreamt for us, were we going to squeeze in front of the TV? From the upstairs window I could just see the garden of the much more expensive house next door and I felt sad, which is very spoilt of me, but I think to look at green but not be able to live in it might be a bit miserable. Perhaps we should expand our search area.
To the next location. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in TV and I’d forgotten that we had to ‘cut!’ every time there was background noise, which was often. A day before filming I was blissfully unaware of the myriad of sounds around me, now there were aeroplanes, motorbikes and power drills going off everywhere.
It took a couple of days to get the hang of being in front of the camera, we were trying to be ourselves but also on our best behaviour. Laura was recognised by a lot of the British holidaymakers and so she and the cameras pulled quite a crowd. When the Director asked us to walk across the Plaça Mayor, packed with dining tourists and seemingly all of our new local friends, James looked like he wished the earth would swallow him whole.
But despite feeling slightly uneasy with our newfound ‘fame’, the experience was proving to be beneficial. The show’s research team had found us properties that weren’t yet advertised, and we viewed houses we hadn’t liked the look of online, but that were much more interesting in the flesh. We completely fell in love with one of them, a 16th Century house tucked down a tiny, cobbled lane. It looked like the kind of place you’d go to buy your supplies for Hogwarts.
We approached the front door, complete with hitching post to tether donkeys and a hatch in the door for the occupier to determine whether you are friend or foe. Inside, the house had all the bits I love – slabs of stone worn down by generations of feet and abundant beams. Courtyards and bougainvillea, fireplaces, and rooftop views. No pretence needed here, I squealed with delight.
It was small, but perfectly formed, you could picture yourself cosying up by the fire in the living room in winter and preparing delicious meals in the rustic kitchen (and for this I had to push my imagination to the limits - for I cannot prepare delicious meals to save my life!). There were enough rooms for us not to have to be in the same one all the time, and while the girls were little there would be enough space. Reluctantly we had to acknowledge that it would be less charming when they grew into teenagers and fought over the one bathroom, but perhaps this didn’t have to be our forever home. With house prices in Pollença increasing by 17% each year perhaps we just needed to get on the ladder, and what a delightful first rung.
The Director stopped filming for a break, so I checked my phone and there was the message we had been waiting for - we had been granted our Digital Nomad Visas! I quite literally screamed and when James and the crew realised why they screamed too, everyone knowing what it meant for us. The risk we’d taken in selling our house in Australia to move to Mallorca had paid off. Was it a sign that we should buy this house?! I do love a sign.
We went to other houses, further out of Pollença. They didn’t have the architecture and ambience of the old town but they did have gardens and swimming pools. Perhaps driving to school wasn’t too bad after all?
We wrapped for the day and knew the drill – tomorrow we would meet Laura, drink orange juice and give her our decision on whether we would be putting in an offer on any of the houses.
Our heads swam with all the jargon – investment, location and compromise. I tortured myself thinking how much more I would have gotten if I’d bought when I lived here in 2010. But I didn’t have the means then and so comforted myself thinking what a steal this price tag will seem in another 15 years.
I went to sleep thinking of the 16th Century house, picturing myself in the courtyard with the bougainvillea, dreaming of donkeys.
The next day we met Laura and the crew at a beautiful house just off the Calvari Steps. Many times over our budget but providing the view and the serenity one needed to make huge decisions very quickly and in front of the nation. The orange juice was poured, the cameras started to roll. Would a small chunk of this incredible island be ours?
Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until when the episode airs early next year to find out! But what I can say is that the entire production was genuine, fun and insightful. I can’t recommend the experience highly enough if you’re looking for your own place in the sun.
Lucy Hawkins is a writer and artist who lives in Mallorca with her husband and two young daughters. She studied Journalism at the University of the Arts in London and worked at Cosmopolitan Magazine and The London Paper in the UK as well as newspapers and magazines around the world. Her original artwork, prints and homewares are sold in stores across Australia and her children’s book, The Salvager’s Quest, is available through online book retailers worldwide.
