Winter White

ANTIQUES, NATURAL TOUCHES AND A FRENCHNORDIC FLAIR CREATE A ROMANTIC CHRISTMAS STYLE.

- Mieke Vendel

THIS CHARMING HOME IN BREITBRUNN, a small village on the east bank of Lake Ammer, west of the city of Munich in Bavaria, Germany, has been in Susie Longo’s family since 1950. She now shares it with her husband, Rudy, daughters Michelle and Viviana, and their dog Lily.

“My father’s father built this house for his young family with his two bare hands and stones from a bombed house nearby, just a few years after the second World War,” says Susie. “I remember him telling me he dug the hole for the cellar himself with a simple spade, so the building took some years.”

After Susie’s grandfather had passed away and her grandmother went to live with family members, she got the news that the house was now hers. “I had dreamt of living in Breitbrunn since I was a little girl, so I was overjoyed when we heard we could move into my grandparents’ house, even though it was in desperate need of maintenance,” Susie says.