Meet your New Home

Nicolai Watzenig is one of the founders of August, and the brains behind its approach to finding and renovating its portfolio of properties. He sits down with Country & Townhouse to describe the process.

"Every home in the collection is carefully selected for its potential, and then transformed by August to its exacting standards, using local tradesmen and traditional crafts for a truly luxurious and unique aesthetic."
 
What’s August’s design philosophy?

Building a more seamless way of owning your own holiday homes, as well as creating houses with unique flavours of the region in which they’re located.

What do you look for in a new August property?

In the last year, we have looked at at least 2,000 properties and ended up acquiring 50 of them. We try to choose properties in destinations that are close enough to airports, but within walking or driving distance of local attractions and covetable towns and cities, depending on your collection.

What is the first thing the August design team look at when decorating a new property?

With interior design, I think 95 percent of it is finding the right property. Next, we really want to emphasise that when you’re in Tuscany you get a Tuscan home, and when you’re in the Cotswolds you feel like you’re in the Cotswolds. And that informs everything in terms of our design choices and local suppliers.

Why is sourcing local and antique pieces important to August?

We spend a ton of time and resources going to local flea markets and trawling through online forums to find local vintage dealers, where we can find what we need for every home. It’s more sustainable and it’s also the only way to really capture the unique flavour of each location.

What do the homeowners think?

I have never known such high customer satisfaction; our co-owners are so excited and happy about their houses, and the quality of the interiors.

What is ‘The August Way’?

It’s all about community. Building a sense of belonging for our homeowners, so they can put down roots and create lifelong memories, somewhere they bring their children and later their grandchildren. Creating a unique community of homeowners that share beautiful properties across Europe forever.

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Re-purposed from an article in Country & Townhouse.

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