How a mountaintop finca near Cala Xarraca became the epicentre of a globetrotting couple&rsquo;s covetable new way of life.

She&rsquo;s the top fashion model from Germany who&rsquo;s fronted campaigns for Caudalie, Carolina Herrera and Max Factor. He&rsquo;s the Australian ex-pro skier-turned-photographer who&rsquo;s investing in a sustainable water future for Ibiza. Together, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vanessabreuer1/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vanessa Breuer</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/oddyg/?hl=en">Oddy Graham</a> have become the poster children for a seductive, sun-soaked vision of rural island life that eschews gloss and glamour in favour of an earthy, authentic and elemental approach to living, loving and parenting. Their house, a rambling, 500-year-old finca at the top of a vertiginous mountain track with blue painted shutters and jaw dropping sea views has become the star of multiple advertising campaigns. It has also become Vanessa and Oddy&rsquo;s unexpected spiritual home and a refuge in which to raise their three small daughters, Luca, Evie and Mila, far from the influence of the wider world.

You met in Australia 16 years ago and prior to moving to Ibiza had spent the last eight years living out of suitcases around the globe. What made you choose Ibiza and this extraordinary house in particular?
V.B. We had got married in Ibiza and we always loved it here, but we weren&rsquo;t part of any scene. We weren&rsquo;t emotionally invested. We knew we wanted somewhere rural to raise our first daughter, Luca, and I wanted to be close to my mom in Germany. Ibiza seemed like a good option, although in hindsight we hadn&rsquo;t given it much thought. When we arrived, this house wasn&rsquo;t even on our radar. It didn&rsquo;t have a pool, which was a priority for us. But we saw 25 other houses and while they all looked great, they didn&rsquo;t feel like home. When we got here, I went into the garden to breastfeed Luca and as I sat there in the sun with that crazy mountain view, I just knew we were home. We knew it was where we wanted to raise our children, wild and free and naked, with no neighbours, no noise. The house needed a lot of work, so we decided to take a year off work to be together as a family and to create a home. We spent all our days here, fixing up the house, planting veggies in the garden, walking through the mountains with Luca in the baby carrier. Oddy had lost his phone on the plane on the way to Ibiza, so we only had one phone between us that year. One car. We did everything as a three. It was super romantic.&nbsp;

Vanessa, you have always had a high-profile career, but during the pandemic it felt the pair of you really crystallised your island identity. Was that something that happened naturally?
V.B. It seems strange to say but the pandemic was really special for us. Before it hit, I was traveling two or three times a month to Australia and America, because that&rsquo;s where my main clients were. In fact, we were thinking about moving back to the USA because the travel was getting too much. I was away more than I was here and Oddy was essentially raising the girls alone on a mountaintop in Spain. It wasn&rsquo;t what we&rsquo;d planned. When the pandemic came, it changed everything because I couldn't go to those countries anymore. I started working more in Europe, and when we went into lockdown, we started to produce shoots here. It was quite surreal: we did home schooling for a month. The kids were in heaven. I got my veggies from the farm once a week. A local friend provided a chicken once a week. You know, that's our grocery shop done. And because I was documenting all this on Instagram we suddenly started being asked to produce campaigns for fashion brands in our own home, as a team, which was basically a dream come true. We shot campaigns for <a href="https://shopdoen.com/">D&ocirc;en</a>, for <a href="https://www.sezane.com/us">Sezane</a>, for Mignonne Gavigan. And we really saw something changing in the kids: they weren't waiting for the next thing to happen - they were totally present. We all really lived in the moment during that period and I&rsquo;m so grateful to have shared it with my family

Oddy, you're a professional skier, a surfer and a craftsman, yet during the pandemic you became a fashion photographer too. Did that come easily to you?&nbsp;
O.G. I always say I&rsquo;m a breathing tripod! I&rsquo;ve never studied photography but all of Vanessa&rsquo;s candid Instagram moments are basically as seen by my eye. That&rsquo;s how we&rsquo;ve always collaborated. There is maybe a little bit of direction sometimes but in general, these are authentic family moments. So, I&rsquo;ve always had an eye for that. When we started shooting campaigns at home, a lot of that would come under Vanessa's direction. She&rsquo;s worked in the industry for 23 years so she understands cameras and lighting and has a strong sense of what works and what doesn&rsquo;t. And actually that's when the potential of our house really opened up. Because we&rsquo;d get sent all these clothes by the brands and then the finca would just influence the direction of the shoot. There are so many photogenic elements: the blue doors, the curving walls and the crazy views. The stone steps and the huge tropical plants and the hazy sunsets. Our home became a photographic studio on a mountaintop. As couple who&rsquo;d always been separated by Vanessa&rsquo;s work, to have her at home non-stop and to be creating together was a really profound experience. It brought us very close.&nbsp;

Your life as portrayed on Instagram became a reflection of how we all wanted to be living during the pandemic &ndash; in simplicity, back to nature, surrounded by love and beauty. A sort of renaissance of the Ibiza of the 1970s. Was there a plan or did that way of living just evolve?
V.B. There was never a plan, never a goal in mind. We never sat down and discussed the life we wanted to live. I think some people do that, but not us.&nbsp;I always said that this life found us: we didn&rsquo;t go looking for it. We didn&rsquo;t have an image of what it looked like or of how we wanted to be perceived. Slowly our life here has developed into something that not only feels good, but that works for us. In terms of the pandemic, I think people&rsquo;s priorities became very clear during that time&ndash; family, love, home, nurture, nature. Our outer worlds shrank but our inner worlds grew. So yes, I think perhaps the idea of being isolated with your loved ones on a mountain in the sun, surrounded by nature and then being able to create work out of that could be very appealing to people. But it was just the way things happened for us.

You both extol the virtues of living a simple, sustainable life in Ibiza and treading gently on the earth. Oddy, your company Osmosys provides safe, filtered drinking water from the tap on an island that creates more plastic waste per head of capita than anywhere else in Europe. How does that make you feel?
O.G. Building <a href="https://osmosys.eu/ibiza/">Osmosys</a> been my absolute grounding on the island. To be presented with the opportunity to be environmentally conscious in Ibiza while providing a service that everybody needs is amazing.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve got nothing but enjoyment out of it, because it is something our island was crying out for: clean,&nbsp; affordable drinking water without the plastic. People have been very receptive, especially in the communities in the north, because it takes the question of buying bottled water out of the equation. I find that people in Ibiza are generally environmentally conscious and they do want to make a difference but - as we see all over the world - they're less keen to do it at the expense of convenience or value for money. Osmosys solves both those issues - it's super convenient, the subscription service is hassle-free and it costs way less than buying bottled water. Osmosys allows people to be environmentally in tune without having to encroach on their comforts, and that's a significant breakthrough. Our goal is to replace ten million plastic bottles by 2025. We're definitely on track to achieve that.

You&rsquo;ve been in Ibiza eight years now and have created a beautiful life here.&nbsp; What is it about the island that makes it so special?
V.B. Ibiza is very privileged in that we can have this country life, in near isolation, but in 30 minutes you're at a more or less international airport. You have an international crowd of residents; you have amazing restaurants. You can party if you want to, go hiking if you want to. You can be holistic; you can be naughty. It's all here and nothing is more than 45 minutes away. And in two hours, I'm in Germany or in London. In ten hours, I&rsquo;m in New York. It's very easy to live here and it's a magic little island where everything happens. Sure, maybe the schools are better elsewhere or the rents are cheaper, but Ibiza makes up for that in so many ways. Plus, we still see all our friends. Everyone comes to Ibiza at some point, which wouldn&rsquo;t be the case if we lived in rural France or Sardinia or Tuscany. I would say 85 per cent of our friends worldwide have been to see us: from Australia, America, everywhere. Ibiza is a global meeting point. I can&rsquo;t imagine being anywhere else.

‘We didn’t search for this life. It found us.' At home with Vanessa and Oddy.

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