Villa Mamana on Telekivava'u Island

Villa Mamana on tiny Telekivava'u Island in the Kingdom of Tonga is an amazing place. Created as a labour of love in the 90s by Joe and Lola Altenhein, it was sold to a couple of Americans who have so far had little success in running it as the exclusive hide-away they had hoped it to become. Not only are the logistics of operating it overwhelming but so are the difficulties of attracting wealthy tourists who are willing and able to pay the sort of rates which would make it economically viable.

One of the owners, Matt Muirhead (pictured above), emailed me:

"Malo Peter, Do you know how we can contact Horst Berger? We are still trying to keep Villa Mamana alive. We will be on Telekivava'u Island on Feb 1 and are working on the roof, painting and building trails that will transit the island. We will be installing new caretakers from Germany in a few months. Our contract with our website service www.villamamana.com expired and they never contacted us as the new owners. We would love to get it back up and add updated pictures. Any help you could offer would be great. I know that the company who designed our site is in Australia as was the domain company. I will update you on our progress and send you pictures after our trip. Matt Muirhead"

 

 

It would be wonderful if Villa Mamana could be revived although its commercial success is far from assured.

 

Telekivava'u is the longish island at the top of the picture

 

Good luck, Matt! And I'd be glad to help; however, your old website has totally disappeared. I have searched various archives and found bits and pieces which may allow me to resurrect some, if not all, of the old pages and pictures. This sort of 'detective work' can take longer than building a new website and some of the necessary items, photos and style sheets, may be lost forever. The advantage is that you may get the fundamentals of your old website back together without having to go through the whole design process again. So far I have made a start on the Welcome page which I'm temporarily storing on my own server.

I look forward to hearing from you again and seeing those pictures!