The Standard
How I choose a house
I am Lisa. I find the houses and I choose the people who look after you in them. Here is what I hold them to, and why.
The Standard
I am Lisa. I find the houses and I choose the people who look after you in them. Here is what I hold them to, and why.
People used to ask whether the house had a pool. Now they ask whether it has a court.
I started Padel Hideaways because the same thing kept happening. You find a beautiful house, you book it, and the padel is an afterthought: a public club twenty minutes away, courts gone by eight in the morning, and a coach nobody has met.
So I set one rule and never moved it: the court is on the property, or the house is not on this site. Everything after that is about the week around the court. Where you sleep, who drives you, who cooks, who coaches, and who picks up the phone when something changes.
I am not an agency with a thousand villas. There are four houses here because four meet the standard. Most do not, and I would rather send you nowhere than somewhere adequate.
Reliability, privacy, comfort and quality decide everything. These are the seven things I hold a house to. There are no scores: it is good enough to be here, or it is not.
Can everyone sleep well and eat at one table?
Groups fall apart over bedrooms. If two people are in a study with a sofa bed while everyone else has a suite, the week has a problem by Tuesday. Real bedrooms, real bathrooms, and comfort that holds for everyone, not just the first to arrive.
Then the table. One table that seats everyone, every night, is the difference between a group holiday and a set of people sharing a house.
Can you hear anyone else?
Privacy is the whole product. Nobody within sight or earshot of the pool or the court, no passing traffic, no shared access.
And what you see from the terrace at seven in the evening, which is when people decide whether they love a place.
Is it private, on site, and good enough to play on twice a day?
A court you share with the hotel next door is not a padel holiday, it is a booking system. So the court has to be inside the boundary, reachable without leaving the property, and yours for the whole week.
Then the court itself: surface, glass, net height, run-off, and lights that work when the sun goes down. Plenty of houses list a court and hope nobody checks.
Can someone cook properly here, and is there good food nearby?
Some weeks want a chef every night; some want one long lunch out and a barbecue. Either way the kitchen has to work: space to cook for twelve, equipment that means it, and good food within a short drive.
And the chefs. I work with people who cook at a level worth staying in for, and I keep the same ones, because reliability matters more than novelty.
What happens to your body between matches?
Padel twice a day for a week is more than most bodies are used to. A pool worth swimming in, a sauna, ideally something cold, and shade in the afternoon.
Where something is missing, the listing says so. Branca has no plunge pool. That did not stop me listing it, but it does stop me pretending.
Who is actually there, and how good are they?
Staff on a listing and staff in real life are different things. I meet the people who will be there: housekeeping, the gardener, whoever keeps the court swept.
The best houses feel like nobody is working, because everything is already done. The worst ones need you to organise them.
Does the group go quiet when they arrive?
This is the one that cannot be measured, and the one that decides it. Some houses are correct in every other way and still feel like nothing.
The ones that make it here have a moment: the last stretch of track, the first sight of the court through the trees, the terrace at dusk. You know it when the group stops talking.
Most of my guests would rather not be named, which I take as a good sign. These are used with permission.
We have booked a lot of expensive houses. This is the first one where nobody in the group had a job.
Nothing needed organising once we landed. The cars were there, the coach knew our levels before we hit a ball, and dinner was handled every night we wanted it handled.
We have taken houses in Ibiza for fifteen years. This is the first time the padel was the reason and not the excuse, and the first time nobody had to be the organiser.
Lisa told us what the house did not have before we booked. That is why we booked, and why we have been back twice.
Our board went for four days and came back talking about the food. The coaching was genuinely elite, which I did not expect.
Complete privacy, which for us is not a nice-to-have. No other guests, no shared court, and nobody who needed telling twice.
She answers. That sounds like a low bar until you have dealt with everyone else.
Names withheld as standard. I will introduce you to a past guest on request.
I am Lisa. I find these houses, I choose the people who look after you in them, and I plan your week myself. Fifteen minutes on a call is the fastest way to know if this is for you.