In one of the steep hills of Son Vida you find a beautiful, white house with a big garden overlooking the entire Palma bay. This is the home of Helen Cummins, founder and owner of abcMallorca. In this luxury villa she lives with her family.
Son Vida is one of the most exclusive areas on the island and the street in front of their house is called ”the golden mile”, Helen says.
– We really love Son Vida because you are more or less in the countryside, but still just 10 minutes away from Palma. It is peaceful, quiet and safe around here.
A wonderful, white villa in Mallorquin winter sun.
The view from the house and the garden is extraordinary.
The large and modern house welcomes you into a beautiful entrance with high ceilings, marble floors and a staircase connecting the two floors.
When you enter the living room the first thing you see is the spectacular view.
– On a clear day you can see all the way to Cabrera island, Helen says and points in the direction to the National Park outside of the Southern coast of Mallorca.
The house is light and airy through every room.
The skylight in the entrance opens up the room with daylight.
Through the panoramic windows you see the city of Palma, the majestic Cathedral and the Mediterranean sea.
The fireplace is decorated with candles and stockings and in the corner of the living room there is a Christmas tree.
– My daughter and I decorated the tree the other day, Helen says as she plugs in the lights.
The second the tree lights up it starts playing Christmas songs.
– Well, that is a little too much, Helen says with a laugh and turns the music off.
On every branch there is an ornament – they come in different shapes and colors, with pearls, sequins or colorful ribbons.
Each and every one of them tells its own story and has a special meaning and memories, Helen says.
– Every time we travel we try to pick up something to put in the tree.
There is one from Dubai, another one from St. Petersburg, and a sparkling little surfboard from California among others.
– And my husband is a model plane flyer, she says and shows a little plane hanging from the tree.
Every ornament in the Christmas tree tells its own story.
The Cummins residence is decorated and ready for Christmas.
Helen who is originally from Ireland met her husband, Georg, when she was on a holiday in Mallorca almost twenty years ago.
– It was my fifth time on the island and my love story with Mallorca had already begun, but I didn’t think I would ever live here, she says.
And leaving Ireland was not easy.
– In the beginning I wasn’t sure at all. I was going back and forth, and we were traveling a lot, but my base was still in Ireland. I had a life and a career and wasn’t really ready to leave that behind, Helen says.
Helen Cummins is still “in love” with Mallorca and finds new inspiration every day.
But leaving her career in Ireland would not be a problem as it turned out, because Helen was heading for a new one.
– When I moved to Mallorca you couldn’t find any good info site about the island in English, so I decided to start one myself.
In 2003 Helen started abcMallorca.com, a search engine about Mallorca, and it became a success. It has grown bigger and bigger and last year the website had 1,6 million visitors and is considered one of the largest information portals about the island.
A year after creating abcMallorca Helen decided to launch a magazine edition with the same name.
– It was mostly meant to be a marketing thing for the website with three editions during the summer, but it turned out we really hit something there, she says.
The abcMallorca magazine was a hit and this year Helen and her team published their 100th edition.
abcMallorca is a lifestyle magazine for Mallorca, and is published in English, Spanish and German.
Even though they love traveling, Helen and her husband eventually decided to settle down.
–We had been traveling a lot during our first years together, but when we had our daughter we felt it was time to choose a “home” and focus on a life there.
At that time they also had a place in Italy which they loved, but not in the same way as Mallorca.
– Italy is amazing and we still love Italy, but we couldn’t see ourselves moving there. To have an actual life there.
Their hearts said Mallorca.
– We still travel a lot, but Palma is our home, Helen says.
The “family area” is connected to the kitchen and is where they spend most of their time together.
There is both a small dining area and a larger dining room in the house.
The open plan kitchen has direct access to the terrace and an amazing view.
Their Mallorca home is a 2000 square meter plot with a 600 square meter house, divided in to five bedrooms, five bathrooms, two living rooms, kitchen, dining room and a library.
At the moment there is also an ongoing project to redo some parts of the house.
– We want to create more open spaces, Helen says. I like having people over, to have dinner with friends or organizing parties. I wanted to make the house a bit more open and suitable for social events.
Next year the garden is also getting redecorated with a new lounge area and more plants and flowers, making it ready to enjoy a long, warm Mallorca summer. But for now the winter sun is setting, colouring the sky in pink and purple and all over the island people are getting ready to celebrate Christmas with friends and loved ones, just like Helen and her family.
Next year the terrace is getting a new lounge area and the garden is getting greener.
What a place for a swim.
Text: Maria Strömqvist
Photo: Ida Carlsson
Are you interested of living in Son Vida? Have a look at our properties here.
No Comments