The Inbetween

In 2025, we sold the East Village Hotel.

Like many business sales, there were negotiations, delays, periods of waiting and the uncertainty that comes with handing over something that has shaped almost a decade of your life. When the sale finally settled, there was relief.

Not because it was easy to leave that chapter behind.

But because my thoughts and energy were finally free to turn towards the next one.

There is an unshedding that happens when you move from one business or project to the next.

A release of the past that allows what's next to flow in.

That's exactly what happened. For years, Lotus had been slowly evolving.

We had nurtured it into a successful holiday rental, welcoming guests from around the world. But like any well-loved property, constant use had taken its toll and it needed some extra care. It was also ready for its next chapter.

Years earlier, we'd secured a development approval to expand the property's amenities, but life and business had other priorities. The plans sat patiently in the background, waiting for the right time.

When the East Village sold, Lotus finally had my full attention.

After a great deal of thought and many conversations, I realised it was time to bring those plans to life. To reimagine the gardens, introduce a magnesium pool and full-spectrum infrared sauna, refresh the interiors and, perhaps most excitingly, explore a long-held dream of hosting retreats.

More than anything, I wanted to understand what Lotus could become.

At the very beginning of every project, there are more questions than answers.

Would we host the retreats ourselves, or create a property that others could use to run their own? Where would the greatest value be created? Which additions would genuinely improve the guest experience, and which would simply add cost? How do you create something commercially successful while remaining true to the feeling of a place?

I'm still sounding out many of these questions. This part of the plan is still taking shape.

The beginning of a project isn't when you start building.

It's about what happens before. Thinking. Walking the property. Testing ideas and discarding them. Looking again.

Trying to understand where the real opportunity lies.

Dreaming and planning.

Then thinking commercially leads to conversations with architects, builders, landscapers, suppliers, collaborators and staff.

Ideas are tested and costed.

Challenged and refined.

So much of development happens long before demolition begins.

Hundreds of small decisions are made before a single wall comes down.

From the outside, very little appears to have changed.

Inside, everything has.

As I write this, Lotus is in pieces.

The gardens have been cleared. Rooms are stripped. Furniture and fittings are being ordered. Every day is filled with decisions, yet very little of what I'm working towards is visible. The in-between.

At almost the same time, another transition has been quietly unfolding.

Our daughters have grown up. School has given way to university, careers and independent lives. The rhythm of our family has changed in ways so gradual that you barely notice until one day you realise the season has shifted.

I see many women talking about this transition.

It has made me realise that life doesn't always move neatly from one chapter to the next.

We imagine change happens when we sell the business, move house, watch our children finish school or begin something new.

I don't think it does. Most of life seems to be lived in the in-between.

The old chapter has ended, but the new one hasn't yet fully revealed itself.

You're working as hard as ever, yet from the outside it can look as though very little is happening.

People ask what you're up to.

There is a gap between who you know you're becoming and what the world can already see.

Perhaps that's why the in-between can feel so uncomfortable.

The thinking happens quietly.

The uncertainty is carried privately.

Yet this is where projects begin to reveal what they can become.

Where the strongest ideas gather momentum.

Others simply fall away, making room for better ones.

It's not the part anyone celebrates.

Yet it may be the most important stage of all.