Meet Dorrien Ricardo
Presentation
Meet with those who love Morzine and make it such a special place.
Today, meet Dorrien Ricardo, Le Mas de la Coutettaz also known as The Farm House. Born in Tanzania, Dorrien fell in love with Morzine and with its oldest building. Watch his story.
My name is Dorrien Ricardo.
I've been in Morzine for nearly 30 years and I’m now part of this beautiful hotel The Mas de la Coutettaz in French or the Farmhouse.
I was born in East Africa in Tanzania and I lived there till I was 12 years old funnily enough the house that we lived in there was built by my father and it was all built out of stone and there were a lot of similarities to this house we had open fires like this one here and we had candlelight dinners because we had no electricity.
I've carried through to here, I then came to Europe and lived in England for a while and when I left school, I had an idea that I might want to go into the hotel industry and I grew with the company that ended up with 32 hotels and a number of chalets and I worked with them and then I came to live in Morzine because we had five hotels in Morzine.
I lived in an apartment which was opposite here on the other side of the mountain but every morning when I opened the shutters, I looked down across the valley and right in front of me was the Farmhouse and every morning I thought what a dream wouldn't that be fantastic never ever knowing that maybe one day it would actually be mine so this is my dream come true.
The Farmhouse was built in 1771 which as it happens makes it the oldest surviving building in Morzine.
It was built by a family a family who had slate mines and Morzine was a big slate mining town in 1700s, the roof and many of the doorways and the stairs and things are all made from slate.
when I took on the farmhouse initially it was in quite a poor state of repair but very beautiful on the inside.
That's what is the upside so I've spent a lot of time and care trying to keep that feeling of an old house in an old building but at the same time creating new bathrooms, keeping the rooms large, the same size that they used to be not dividing things up and staying as much as possible the same as it ever was.
Frequently I have guests who are staying here who ask me where I go on holiday ? And my reply to them generally is why would I need to go on holiday when I live in the most beautiful place in the world ?
The interview is also available on video if you want to discover this mythical place in Morzine.