Thirty Years of Open Frontiers, Through the Eyes of the Girl Who Grew Up Inside It

My dad just gave you his side of our open frontiers real estate history— the borders he built, the stand he painted himself and shipped to Olympia, the years of driving to Ghent and Antwerp and Utrecht with the same publicity boards in the back of the car. That’s Open Frontiers from the man who started it in 1996. I want to tell you the same thirty years from my eyes, looking up — because I just turned 31, and that feels like exactly the right moment to finally tell this 30 year story.

My first memory of Open Frontiers isn’t really about real estate at all. It’s walking into the office in La Duquesa — I still know exactly which corner — as a small kid, and feeling like an absolute VIP.

So many sales agents buzzing around, and somehow everyone knew me — I got to walk straight past all of it, into the big boss’s office, no knocking, no waiting. The big boss happened to be my dad. And on his desk there was a picture of me, my mum, my brother, and him. I had no idea yet what any of the other desks were for. I just knew that office was mine to march into, and be whoever I wanted to be.

Then came the golf tournaments, and honestly, if you want to know why you still cannot keep me off a dance floor, and why “shy” has never once made it into my dictionary — this I reckon could very well be the reason. There are so many photos of me on stage at the gala, dancing right alongside the professional dancer they’d hired for the night — and I’d still probably have the nerve to do that today. My brother and I had the run of that golf club: we could walk, stand, dance wherever we wanted, while our parents worked so hard, entertaining hundreds of people and raising real money for charity, somehow still managing to be the best parents in the room the whole time.

I was the daughter of Ben and Grietje, a star for absolutely no reason of my own, daughter of the wonderful “guiris” (a slang, rather debatable, term used for ‘foreigners’, very common in Spain in the early 2000’s) who organised these incredible golf tournaments and raised thousands for charity, fuelled 100% by their energy and nothing else. My parents have always been people who do things, who take action, who get their hands dirty with no second thought — something I admire so deeply in them, something I’m so glad I inherited. It’s probably exactly why organising something like our charity padel tournament today comes so naturally to me. I learned from the best, and they are still there next to me, always.

And then came 2008, and I remember that one just as clearly, in a completely different key. I remember my dad’s worry, my mum’s endless brave face. I remember my dad pushing through days that were genuinely dark, always looking for the next solution rather than stopping to feel how bad it was. Suddenly the office was inside our house — something that had never happened before. The place I used to march around like a mini-boss wasn’t the office anymore, it was home, it didn’t feel the same. After school I’d walk in, say hello, sit down, and just watch. I could see how worried he was — for the company, but especially for us.

My dad has always been a bit of a phoenix, coming back stronger exactly when things get really, truly bad, the kind of bad where most people give up. That sums up my parents more than anything: an unbeatable strength I still admire today, probably the reason we’re such a close family. They never gave up on each other, on us, or on Open Frontiers.

My next memory is from 2010, when I actually got a seat at the table — but only because my dad had a really bad ski accident. My brother and I were still small, my mum was suddenly alone, Spain suddenly felt very foreign to her, and my dad was in a hospital in Switzerland. She wanted to go to him, but couldn’t — she had us, we had school, life had to go on as normal.

While the strongest woman I know was cracking at the seams because she knew exactly how bad the accident was, my dad was completely convinced he’d get out of that hospital bed and fly straight to the AIPP trade show at London’s ExCeL. That didn’t happen — months of rehabilitation did, before he could even walk without crutches — but from his hospital bed, on speaker, I sat at a table with my mum, Charlie Gubbins (who was then with us, and now continues his career successfully in Real Estate) and more friends and collaborators of my dad’s, brainstorming how to get Open Frontiers to London without him.

I don’t actually remember what got decided that day. I don’t even remember what I said. But I remember exactly how it felt to be included — to be asked what I thought, and to have someone at that table agree with me. That feeling was addictive.

I remember them debating whether to wear something relaxed, maybe even a flowery shirt, to reflect the “holiday” lifestyle of the south — colours and festivities everywhere, something nobody would dare do at a trade show today. I was marvelled at how committed everyone was, to my dad, to Open Frontiers, to the project, pulling together tighter than they might have if he’d been standing right there to move it forward himself. In my head, it was also to take some weight off my mum, to give my dad more strength to focus on recovery, because to me, we were one big family, united by the company. That part, I’ll never actually know for sure, but it felt, and still feels real to me today.

My next memory was finally full involvement: the Second Home expos in Belgium, 2013. I was 17, last year of school, feeling on top of the world because I was going to IE University in Madrid, on a scholarship, and life was looking up for all of us. It was never the plan that my brother and I would be at the expo; my dad always used the trip as an excuse for us to see our family too.

We didn’t have to stay at the expo, it was our choice, and I got pulled in: the excitement, being able to help my dad, talking to people about my home, the place I loved. We never once discussed it, but very quickly my dad and I fell into a system where I’d talk to whoever looked half-interested, then filter the genuinely interested ones through to him, so he could go deep with the right people and I would just take names and emails from the rest. We didn’t need to plan that. We just understood each other, the way we still understand each other, without having to cross many words. My brother was there too, even though he was too young for the floor himself, getting drinks, hanging around, part of it all the same.

That expo was also the first time I really met Michael Norton, director of sales of Sotogrande SA at the time — Open Frontiers had exclusive sales of their projects across Benelux, so Michael came out in representation of the company. I remember how serious and corporate he looked, and being told to be on my absolute best behaviour around him, he was Very Important. It was only later, at dinner, that I discovered what a great heart Michael actually had, how family-oriented he was, what a brilliant storyteller, and that all the nerves had been completely unnecessary. Little did we know, two years later, Michael Norton would be joining our family venture as a shareholder.

After university, in 2019, Sotogrande was launching Village Verde, and there was an event at La Reserva Golf Club. My mum couldn’t make it, so on a last-minute whim I put on the one business-looking outfit I owned — a black jumpsuit, and I’ll admit, it suited me — and joined my dad instead.

The faces of the people there — it was just like being small again at the golf tournaments, almost everyone knew who I was, so happy to see me. But I’d been away in Madrid for five years by then, living the summers of Sotogrande by night on the dancefloor or at the beach, and I barely recognised half of them back. Every time someone asked, “is she joining you?”, “is she working for Open Frontiers?”, always with all the excitement in the world, my dad’s answer was the same: “I wish.” “I hope, maybe, one day.” Always with a huge smile. I laughed it off as the most obvious impossibility in the world. It was only later that week that it actually broke my heart a little, because I had no intention of joining the real estate at all.

From 2019 until I formally joined in 2023, my life took a completely different course — I resisted real estate horribly. But what’s already written in history, I guess, cannot really be avoided.

Was it my dad’s wishful thinking? Something subconscious in me? Pure coincidence? Or just the sum of every decision I made along the way, chasing that feeling of being, forever, the lucky girl walking into her dad’s office? I don’t know. What I do know is that I love real estate, I’m so proud of my dad’s track record, and I’m honoured to be part of my beautiful family, in Sotogrande, at Open Frontiers. In 2019 it seemed impossible. Today it makes absolute sense, and it’s a decision I will never take back.

And of course, I’m still me. I still teach at university. I still enjoy Sotogrande (by night, on the dancefloor) in the summer. The other agents laugh just by looking at me, and I’m still the one rounding everyone up to the bar after a broker open, where the real laughs happen and outlast any competition that is supposed to exist between different agencies.

My dad built Open Frontiers by physically crossing borders — moving to Spain, years of driving to fairs across Belgium and the Netherlands, making it to London. I grew up on the other side of that same instinct, showing up, talking to strangers about a place I love, pulling people in and uniting them. And he’s still right there doing it with me — we’re still working on new plans together most weeks, teaching me things, learning from me too.

Thirty years into Open Frontiers, thirty-one years into my life, it turns out we were never doing two different things. We were doing the same one, just a generation apart.