Major night's dream.The couple transformed the ruin of the monastery on an oasis for the elderly forbes

"It was half a squat," says Tomáš Eckschlager, when we enter the bowels of the former monastery through a pleasant café, where several clients sit in a call, who will move next to the cozy dining room overlooking the French Garden where they can during the summer during the summerseason to lunch on the terrace.

Just behind the café, the wide corridor spreads that surrounds the smaller outdoor atrium, which is dominated by a fountain, at the time of Advent decorated with a shining star.

When you stand in the middle of the atrium and lift your eyes up, you will see three sun clocks and two turns.One of them belongs to the church of sv.Lawrence in close proximity, second directly to the Senlife building.

"It can be seen a little patina, recently new copper coverings from which the sun was reflected, dazzled," Lukáš Drásta returns a few months back, when the final adjustments of the whole complex ended.

Renovation had to run really from grunt.Once the Augustinian monastery was nationalized under socialism and found a refuge here a boarding school for cooks and hairdresser, who later moved to nearby Neratovice.

After the revolution, the monastery returned to the local Lobkowicz family, which includes the Mělnice chateau and the local vineyard.The complex has not been used since then, and it gradually dilapidated.Last time the building with a large garden served fans of paintball at the troops.

“We did everything on our knees.In the evenings and weekends, the whole work was designed.I proposed, looming and Lukáš gave it backward operational links, ”recalls Tomáš at the very beginnings of the boar project.At that time, they both worked in managerial positions of the Pension Fund of the Great German Insurance Company, where they had no need for money.Tomáš for the fund searched for older monuments and real estate suitable for renovation and to convert to residential housing.

Přišla grilovat a zachránila zámek. Kateřina Šrámková rozjela na Loučni úspěšný byznys

And once, when he passed through Melnik, he noticed a peeling house from the main road, but after a glimpse of his location, size and predispositions, he captured him with his location, size and predispositions.He did not hesitate, addressed the owner of Jiří Lobkowicz, with whom he began negotiations and began writing a project that he then offered to his employer as another investment.

Zámecká paní. Jak ze zámku z 12. století udělat designový klenot?

"But the leadership swept away from the table, only Prague was interested," says Tomáš, saying that he did not want to give up the old monastery, and therefore mentioned Lukáš.He also liked it, so they decided to try to take everything on their shoulders.After all, Tomáš is an architect and Lukáš again a rescuer with the practice of nursing services.

Over time, they have crystallized the ideal use of space with regard to the combination of their knowledge - home for seniors with a clear division of roles, when Tomáš is in charge of architecture and functionality of space and Lukáš again all around the entire operation of home.

The reconstruction of the Augustinian monastery came together at one hundred million crowns.The bank contributed seventy percent, the rest of the couple is financed by itself.

“The homes of seniors are an acute shortage, today about twenty thousand beds are missing in the Czech Republic.In ten years there will be fifty thousand, so in the Czech Republic must grow 500 homes for the elderly, each of a hundred clients, ”Tomáš gives a look at the basic parameters of their business plan.

The couple did not reach any public subsidy.Although it is a cultural monument and the project creates a lot of jobs.

Melnik Senlife has a capacity of 94 clients to take care of forty healthcare professionals and carers.At present, half a year after the official launch of the operation, it is seventy percent of occupancy, which is twice as much as Tomáš and Lukáš sketched in the business plan for the bank.According to him, they have a loan to repay twenty years.

Seniors have a total of sixty single or double rooms, each of a different size and available.This differs from this seniors' home from classic to sterile devices where the rooms are essentially uniform and the overall environment is quite drab and depersonalized.

Next summer, however, it will be apartments for seniors who can still take care of themselves, but like to participate in the community and would like to use the services of seniors such as medical and nursing care, meals, hairdresser or joint programs such asFor example, the screening in your own summer cinema.

The complex also offers growing herbs and vegetables in a community garden and goat breeding, which also have their pens in Senlife.The project of these senior apartments will cost another sixty million crowns.

But as they say, the food grows with food, so it is clear today that Tomáš and Lukáš will not end his mission only in Mělník.

"If we had one home of seniors, it wouldn't feed us.Our plans are such that we want to have ten homes in ten years, ”both founders with large ambitions say.Two more projects in Central Bohemia already have already started to start.One of them is the castle of Tmaň in the Beroun region and the other at Příbram, where they intend to renovate the former First Republic Spa.

“For other projects, our own funds are no longer enough and we are looking for other financing options.We do not resist the entry of a strong partner with whom we would realize more homes.At the same time we have prepared the possibility of entry for smaller investors from lower hundreds of thousands, ”says Lukáš Drásta at the end of the tour of the novel retirement home Lukáš Drásta.