HGTV favorites Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent purchased a farm in Portugal. The pair spent nearly five years renovating their 18-acre Portuguese farm.
“If I’m being totally honest, this one is hard to share,” Brent told Architectural Digest of the property. “It’s the first time I’ve ever felt so protective about a place.”
Their Move to Portugal
Despite being protective of their sanctuary, Brent and Jeremiah opened the doors to their ranch for fans in a video tour shared with AD.
“I am Portuguese, my parents are Portuguese,” Brent said during a home tour with Architectural Digest. “My mom always talks about stories of coming back here and living here someday.”
According to Berkus, the idea to purchase the home in Portugal was entirely Brent’s.
“It’s usually me with the crazy ideas,” he said.
Brent was able to make his mom’s dream come true after renovating an old bakery on the property for his mother and her husband to live in..
While the couple is thrilled with the outcome of their extensive renovation, they don’t plan to live in Portugal full-time. Brent and Berkus — who share daughter Poppy, 11, and son Oskar, 8 — told the outlet that they will spend up to four months a year on their farm, during the kids’ breaks from school.
“What’s beautiful is hearing my kids run down a pea-gravel path on their way to have a piece of cake warm out of the oven at Gijo’s, which is what they call my mother,” Brent said.
Inside Nate and Jeremiah’s Farm
After purchasing the estate, the men become overwhelmed by the extent of the renovations. he couple
“We’d have these nights where we were just so stressed and overwhelmed,” Berkus said. “We couldn’t visualize what the place could be, and we didn’t know who to talk to about it.”
The design duo ended up building a team of local professionals to help with the property, which consisted of a chapel, an old bakery, and a two-story farmhouse. The property needed more than just a coat of paint, however.
As Architectural Digest reported, Berkus and Brent had to repair old aqueducts, tend to the sheep, and various other farm tasks.
“So, when we bought this house, this room was terrifying,” Brent explained. “It was stone floors, there were troughs everywhere. It was a full barn. All of these rooms were so gross.”
“Oprah used to say all the time, ‘I don’t care about my house; I care about my trees,'” said Berkus. “Now, for the first time, I understood. The pieces started slowly coming together—garden by garden, orchard by orchard, wall by wall, room by room.”
The property was partially furnished when the men purchased it, including kitchen chairs by the French modernist Robert Mallet-Stevens, an antique tapestry, and an iron bed and armoire.
“It’s the most maximalist place we’ve ever lived, but I find it so soothing and comfortable,” Brent explained.
While the Portuguese farm has the men’s hearts, the family primarily reside in New York.
The Netflix star explained, “In New York, I get up early and go, go, go. Here, I sleep a little longer. I like the nights. It’s the most beautiful time of quiet.”
