Lifelong Dream Island
Mark Weiss

This is how it started: student Farhad Vladi was sitting in a Russian restaurant in Munich reading the Süddeutsche Zeitung, when he came across an article about an Englishman buying an island for 5000marks, and his desire for an island of his own was born. “How can I start the ball rolling?" he wondered, then did so rather more spectacularly than planned.

Intending to publish a run-of-the-mill classified advert something like “Farhad Vladi is looking for an island," he sent a letter and 100-mark note to a publishing house in the Seychelles. He was then immediately inundated with offers, not having realized that in local currency his 100 marks was enough to pay for an eye-catching one-page advert. He had been taken for a powerful real estate broker or buyer, and the offers reflected this – not a single island was up for sale for less than 300,000 marks. Nevertheless, the seed had been sown, and Vladi concluded that a lot of people dreamt of having their own island. Once again, he took the initiative: the Hamburg macroeconomics student wrote to the richest people in the city, enclosing photos of the Seychelles islands. Subsequently, three Hamburg business people, including coffee mogul Albert Darboven, bought Cousine Island for 300,000marks. The broker took a commission of three percent, and the “King of the Islands” was born.

Vladi, whose father was Iranian and whose mother was the daughter of a Hamburg businessman quickly realized that he could not only fulfil his dream doing this, but also make a great deal of money. From then on, he launched a systematic search for available islands. Finding out which islands were for sale, what made an island suitable and who owned the islands soon took up a large part of his time. The first two questions were usually answered by perusing tomes in Dr. Götze's bookshop, while the issue of ownership was trickier, and he found himself consulting tax offices in the USA, notaries in France, land registers in Scotland and local fisherman. The first ten years were hard, but today this son of Hamburg is the world's most proliferate and best known island broker. His offices are on the Inner Alster lake, and his clientele includes today's rich and famous – stars such as Hollywood's Johnny Depp and Nicolas Cage, or singer Diana Ross. Anyone who wants to buy an island from him is obliged to take a trip to Hamburg, because this is where he keeps an inventory of his treasures, some 12,000 in total, complete with descriptions and pictures, and classified according to regions, countries, continents and island groups.

Vladi has also found his own dream island, Forsyth Island in the Pacific Ocean, 20 minutes by helicopter from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. The 64-year-old holidays here for five weeks each year. In addition to his family and his islands, Farhad Vladi has another great passion, collecting and dealing in historic maps. He is also a connoisseur of art and music, is interested in climate protection and renewable energies, and supports solar and biogas research. P.S. As a gesture of thanks he has also bought the bookshop where he used to do his island research, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.