Portraits Series
Meet the people who love Morzine and help set it apart from the rest. Dorrien Ricardo, from Le Mas de la Coutettaz, AKA The Farmhouse. Born in Tanzania, he fell in love with Morzine, especially its oldest building.
My name is Dorrien Ricardo.
I have lived in Morzine for nearly 30 years and have become a part of this beautiful hotel called Le Mas de la Coutettaz or, in English, The Farmhouse.
I was born in Tanzania, East Africa, where I lived until the age of 12.
What’s strange is that the house where we lived had been built by my father, entirely of stone, and had many similarities with this one.
We had a fireplace like the one behind us here, and we ate dinner by candlelight because there was no power supply, so lots of aspects that are reproduced here.
I then came to Europe and lived in England for a while.
When I left school, I had an idea that I wanted to work in the hospitality sector, and progressed with a company that ended up with 32 hotels and a number of chalets.
I worked with them, then came to live in Morzine because we had five hotels here. I lived in an apartment opposite here, just the other side of the mountain and each morning, when I opened my shutters, I looked across the valley and The Farmhouse was right there before my eyes.
Every morning I told myself it would be fantastic to live there, a dream, but I never imagined I might own it one day.
So my dream has come true.
The Mas de la Couttetaz was built in 1771, which makes it the oldest building in Morzine.<br>It was built by a family who owned the slate mines and Morzine was a major slate-mining town back then in the 1700s.
The roof and multiple doorways, the steps and many other features are all made from slate.
When I took over The Farmhouse, the building wasn’t in a very good state of repair, but on the positive side it had a beautiful interior. So I put a lot of time and energy into trying to retain the ancient feel of this old house while installing new bathrooms and keeping the bedrooms as large as they were in the past, without partitioning them, and retaining as much as possible of the original style.
I often have guests who ask me where I spend my holidays and I usually reply by asking why would I need to go away on holiday?
I live in the most beautiful place in the world.
Thematics
