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You are here: Home Life in Lifestyle Bringing new perspectives to Berlin development

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27/01/2009Bringing new perspectives to Berlin development

Bringing new perspectives to Berlin development An Italian-Bavarian couple are marrying their distinctive sensibilities together for a new project: building in Berlin.

Giovanna Stefanel-Stoffel is sitting in her office, just meters away from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, chatting.

Until a few years ago, she was enmeshed in the fashion world as the art director of her father's famous fashion company, Stefanel, based in Treviso.

Today, in Berlin, she's caught up in the world of real estate, as the wife and business partner of multi-millionaire Bavarian property developer, Ludwig Maximilian Stoffel. Stoffel, 61, runs the Stoffel Holding company with his brother Manfred.

"My husband has been active in the property development branch for 30 years," says the vivacious 53-year-old Italian. "When we first met I was deeply involved in the fashion industry.”

 


However, meeting Stoffel changed Stefanel-Stoffel’s path. "We decided we'd like to do something very special together,” she says. “We fused our names, married three years ago, and created the Stofanel Investment AG. We wanted to develop our own very special kind of artwork. Planning started two years ago and now we're developing four big and very differently styled projects in the German capital."

These projects required a 300 million euro (435 million dollars) investment commitment on their part. "Italian Dolce Vita and Bavarian quality workmanship united in Prussia -- Giovanna Stefanel-Stoffel and Ludwig Maximilian Stoffel," proclaims the company press handout.

Laying the stones


Last week, the foundation stone for the first Stofanel project was laid. Named Marthashof Urban Village, the development will combine a mix of family-oriented town and garden-style houses, penthouses built around courtyards and flats suitable for singles.

In all, 133 residential units will be built on the 12,380 square-meter site in Berlin's trendy Prenzlauer Berg district by 2010. "Forty per cent of the accommodation has already been sold, which is better than we expected," says Stefanel-Stoffel.


The Marthashof site is a story in itself. In the 1850s, a Christian-run hostel for maidservants was founded there after a number of young girls contracted syphilis, having been lured to work in Berlin under false pretenses.

The "fallen" girls found refuge in the hostel, and were given clean accommodation and medical help. Later, Marthashof became an officially state-recognized evangelical school for future maidservants, supported by wealthy Berliners from 1903 onwards.

By 1917, the school had 450 pupils. But after Hitler rose to power, the school came under Nazi party rule and was ultimately closed. In 1943 it suffered a direct hit during an air raid and was destroyed, killing many of its workers. Today there is a memorial commemorating the former Marthashof on the city's Schwedter Strasse.

Germans and Italians

Ludwig Maximilian Stoffel's eyes twinkle when he compares Italian and German characteristics. "Why do Germans go to Italy, wear Italian clothes, drink Italian wine?” he asks. “Because they're not sure of taste. The Germans usually don't know what is really trendy, what is fashionable. The Italians are so sure: from clothes to glasses, from decoration to cars -- they made Ferrari.”

However, Stoffel also appreciates certain German characteristics. "A Mercedes is also nice because you have no problems with it,” he says. “If you buy from a reliable German estate company that has experience, that has a name and tradition, you can be sure you have something with quality."

Of her role in the Stofanel Investment company, Giovanna says: "I'm a shareholder and I am on the supervisory board. As the art director I'm responsible for everything to do with aesthetics, lifestyle, co-ordination and integration. I watch the development of the undertaking very closely. After meeting my husband I realized I could bring my ideals into the property market business."

Her husband is impressed with the changes taking place in Berlin, which became reunited Germany's capital in 1990.

"For investors in the 1990s, the biggest risk was the delay in deciding where the nation's capital was going to be -- Bonn or Berlin,” he says. “But once that was decided, things started falling into place. Big companies opened offices here, hotels were built, artists arrived, galleries opened and tourists flocked to the city again. But only in the past two years have the changes really become evident."

His wife agrees. "What one can have in Berlin, one cannot get elsewhere. In Italy, many people want to buy small apartments in Prenzlauer Berg and other parts of this city because the prices are so reasonable. Berlin has sex appeal, offers a lot and is a relatively price worthy city. But the city does need entrepreneurs." 

Stoffel Holding has completed a multitude of buildings in various parts of Germany over the past 20 years, in addition to realizing projects at prestigious addresses in Berlin.

The Stofanel Investment AG employs about 25 architects, planners and finance experts at its Berlin headquarters.

The couple, who escape to their house in Tyrol when in need of a break, are also renowned for their warmth and generosity in Berlin. For several years they have been acting as "parents" to 30 Nepalese orphans, paying for their education at an English private school in Katmandu, while also offering supportive family environments.

Stefanel-Stoffel, who has no children of her own, is grateful to her husband for creating the foundation that supports the orphans. "Three times a year we travel to Kathmandu to see the children,” she says. "We'll be going there again in October. Being with the youngsters, aged between five and 17, has become such an important part of our lives."

Clive Freeman/DPA/Expatica


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