My name is Frans Wagemans and Villa Witte Lelie is my ‘stirring up’ project. In 2011 I became unemployed as someone over 50 after a career in health care and politics (alderman). Unfortunately, I could no longer find work in my old field. I am a Drs. in Health Sciences. My age (50+) played an emphatic role in this.
So I decided to start a new life with my wife Anya Niewierra and my two children in the South Limburg hill country. We sold our house in the city and bought our beautiful (but substandard) national monument and, after 2 years of intensive renovation, transformed it into our home with three luxury hotel apartments in a separate section.
Our children are now out of the house and my wife and I enjoy our “little corner of paradise” every day….
Since November 2021, Lenie Niewierra has also been living in a newly built assisted living facility on our property. Lenie is Anya’s mother and has dementia. Anya and I are Lenie’s informal caregivers.
In addition to my work for Villa White Lily, I also arrange the tourist rental of our cottage Maison Oranger in the southern French Pyrenees-Orientales region. Anya and I bought Maison Oranger on impulse years ago during a vacation. We immediately fell in love with the village of Estoher and the small and then dilapidated house, which we then renovated. When our children grew up, we bought a larger barn elsewhere which we then converted into our French “home”. Since we ourselves have not been staying in Maison Oranger since we moved into our big house, we decided to rent it out to guests.
Frans Wagemans
